‘Simplicity is genius’ – Bill Shankly


There was no doubting that I had the raw materials to become a very good athlete, and at 15 years old raw is exactly what I was as you would expect at that age. However there are so many athletes in the same boat at that age, indeed it has proved a major problem for many sports in this country to convert their youngsters with massive potential into delivering world class athletes, it has been a particularly noticeable problem for athletics. There is such a massive gap in quality even from World Championships to Paralympics/Olympics, so making the grade is extremely difficult for all athletes. In my case I was making a jump from my first international competition to potentially going to a Paralympics in less than a year. It was pretty hard to take it all in, even more so for my parents who shelled out thousands on taking me to training weekends and competitions.

At 15 I was at a crucial stage in my development as an athlete and as a person, I was very impressionable and would listen to any ideas from anyone with an I’ll try anything once attitude. Even more crucial from a sporting aspect, I had no throwing frame and was still throwing from my wheelchair, this was very important as we knew that I would need to improve by about five metres in a year to be challenging for gold in Atlanta. Now of course I wasn’t thinking about that, but Ray was, I still didn’t believe I would go to the Paralympics, it seemed surreal to think that.

In the mid nineties throwing frames were starting to become increasingly common as the sport became more competitive and athletes tried to make the most of the 75cm height rule that the seat you use to throw off can be up to 75cm high. I had tried out a very makeshift throwing chair at a BPA weekend as I mentioned earlier but I needed something more custom made. That’s when we came across Carr Gymnasium Equipment in Nottingham, they were a company that made all kinds of sports equipment for schools and leisure centres, and they also made stools that disabled athletes could throw off. The bog-standard stools weren’t suitable for me and what I needed but we thought that they might be able to manufacture me a one off custom made chair, so we set up a meeting with them.

My mum, Ray and I went to Carr’s offices and workshop in the centre of Nottingham, as we pulled into the street I thought it looked like a pretty rough neighbourhood with boarded up houses and heavily fortified looking local shops. Indeed the security around Carr’s premises was noticeable, having one metal door at the front of the building and plenty of cameras surveying the small car park outside the front entrance. We pressed the buzzer and were quickly buzzed in, to a small reception area where we waited for someone to meet us. It was a few minutes when a small man with short dark hair and wearing simple t-shirt, jeans and trainers walked down the stairs and introduced himself as Peter, then asked what he could do for us.

Little did I know then that Peter was in fact the owner of the company and had took time out of his busy schedule to meet me in person. Peter took us upstairs to a small meeting room and we began to explain my situation and what kind of throwing chair I needed, the idea was to keep everything basically the same as my electric wheelchair but take me up to the 75cm height limit. We had some basic measurements and Ray had done a sketch of the chair to show what we were after, the back of the chair and even the cushion would be the same as that of my electric wheelchair. So we went through every aspect of the chair and Peter was brilliant, he understood everything we wanted, coming up with practical and simple ways to make the chair, and he even chipped in with ideas of his own – Peter was a quick learner for someone who had never designed a chair like this before.

The outcome of the meeting was very positive, Peter was keen to make the chair with his only concern being that it would be strong enough to take the force that I put through it whilst being light enough to carry. For this reason the chair would be all one piece and very big but we agreed to that, as having just gotten a Vauxhall Astra, mum was sure we would find a way to get it in the car.

Peter said he would try to make the chair as soon as possible, baring in mind the important season I had coming up – after all, it’s not very often a 15 year old has the chance to go to a Paralympics, especially in track and field. When we eventually got to the part of asking how much the chair would cost, Peter stunned us by refusing to accept any payment for the chair, instead he just told me to get to the Paralympics and get Carr Gymnasium Equipment some publicity – that would be payment enough for him. It was a tremendous gesture and gave me a lot of motivation to do everything I could to get to the Paralympics, it was the start of a great relationship between us.

True to his word, the throwing chair was ready well before the start of the season and it was a good job because even though the chair was modelled pretty much on my electric wheelchair, the first time I got in it, it felt totally alien to me as I had never sat that high up to throw. So the first few weeks of having the chair were spent getting me used to the new position and try to throw whilst overcoming my fear that I was going to fall out of the chair every time I threw – as you can imagine, I wasn’t throwing very far at this point and I wondered if the whole throwing chair venture was a mistake. It didn’t matter how many times my mum, Norman and even Ray told me that there was no way I could fall out of the chair without deliberately falling out, I was still wary and didn’t feel safe, even though the chair was secured to the floor with big metal tent pegs and straps, and the were handle bars either side of me.

The chair was a big piece of equipment but was quite light, much to the relief of my mum and dad who had to lift it and carry it. Going to Cerebral Palsy training weekends in Nottingham was very interesting, by the time my electric wheelchair, my throwing chair and the bags were strategically fitted into our Vauxhall Astra, there was hardly any room for my brother and I in the back. Indeed we often had to share one seat, which proved to be very uncomfortable and mentally challenging for a 15 year old, and 10 year old, especially when it took anything from three hours to get down the A1/M1 to Nottingham. It also took its toll on the Astra when fully loaded up, going up hills was a bit of a struggle.

In time and after lots of training sessions with Norman and Ray, I started to settle down and get used to the chair. The more I threw and didn’t fall out, the more I grew in confidence and gradually became less aware of the height of the chair and the thought of falling out. Ray was particularly good at getting me to focus on one particular thing only and not think about anything else, whether it be the point I was pulling from or the point that I released, it was always just one thing that I was focusing on. Norman provided a laid-back style of coach that helped me to relax and just enjoy throwing, but at this stage up to the 1996 season Norman was handing more of my training and technical development over to Ray, whilst still keeping an eye on me on a weekly basis.

I was a new challenge for Ray as he had never coached an athlete as severely disabled as me, it provided him with renewed motivation after years of successfully coaching ambulant athletes. When I started becoming comfortable in my new throwing chair, I was able to work on developing my technique with the different exercises and methods that Rays was using with me. Nothing too complicated, just basically building up consistency in my throwing movement, which meant I did drills and lots of them.

As I said the challenge for Ray was working out how to coach me as I was different to any athlete he had coached before, for most athletes you can show them a drill and they will go away and do it, but my movement pattern are very erratic so drills are difficult to execute correctly. The way round it was to get me to hit points it space, setting the points by touch – the first thing we worked on was the release point as this was probably the hardest thing for me to control. Ray would get me to do the throwing movement whilst trying to hit his hand at the end, Ray placed his hand where he thought I should be releasing the club – just behind and above my head, baring in mind that I throw the club backwards. The first few times I did the drill I was less than accurate, missing Ray’s hand regularly and often hitting his arm, which tended to hurt as I did the drill at full speed. Ray made the mistake of standing directly behind me when I did this drill, and one time I got my technique completely wrong and accidentally smacked Ray in the face, sending him crashing to the ground. He eventually got up a bit dazed and I apologised profusely, but Ray just said ‘God you’ve got some power’. After that Ray always made sure everything apart from his hand was well out of the way.

My mum was very wary of doing the hand-hitting drill, she always wore a glove and often pulled her hand out of the way before I hit it – and I would moan to her that pulling her hand away wasn’t helping my technique but she would say that I was getting too powerful and was hitting her hand too hard. I did start to get very consistent and accurate, even Ray would struggled to do the drill with me, pretending it didn’t hurt but then turning away holding his hand after I smacked it. The drill was certainly helping the consistency and control of my throwing, as my release became much less erratic.

The next thing to work on was the beginning of the throw, which was also very uncontrolled. With Ray we developed a drill using a towel, I would hold one end and somebody would hold the other end, pulling it tight down to the point where I pulled from to start the throw. Then I had to pull up against the resistance of the person holding the towel, this meant that I could develop control and strength in the position that I needed to be in. Now, Norman had always said to me ever since I started throwing that I shouldn’t throw with my arm and that the arm should be left behind to be whipped through at the last second. But I never quite understood what Norman was getting at, as I just thought that that the arm was the main thing you would use to throw. However, when Ray asked me to do this drill starting with my legs and the push through my hips and then with my back, I realised how much more power I got than with just using my shoulder and arm.

I pulled Ray forward with all the force I generated, I finally understood what Norman meant – generating the throw through your whole body, Ray called it unwrapping. I had strong legs so it made sense to use them, as long as I made sure I didn’t lift my bum off the seat because that would result in a no-throw. We made sure that I didn’t lift my bum by using a third drill that Ray came up with – as I did the throwing movement Ray would tap my upper back at the point when I need to unwrap and bring my arm into the throw. It was the most complicated drill and required a lot of coordination and timing from both me and the person tapping my back.

These drills would form the foundations of my club throwing technique for years to come. You see there been no serious planned coaching of this technique ever before, so with Norman starting off with the basic idea and then Ray developing the technique further, we were all working from a blank sheet and creating a bit of history it the process. I know many coaches who would have been scared to take on an athlete like me at that time and develop a very unusual technique in a unique event, but Ray had the courage and initiative to do it and I’m eternally grateful for that.

So with me new throwing chair and training instructions from Ray, I had the tools to develop but I still had to do the ground work. I still went to sports club at Percy Hedley once a week, where I could see Norman and do work with him, Norman would take me out to throw even if they weren’t doing athletics outside that week because Norman knew the great opportunity I had and that I had to try and make the most of it. My parents made a massive commitment, they knew that I needed to train more than once a week at that time in my development. They would take me out throwing three and four times a week, most at Cragside First School where my brother was attending at the time. The kindly let us use the school field after school time, so I could train very regularly. My sessions were basic back then, doing all the drills and then my mum or dad would set targets for me to try and throw past. But that’s exactly what I needed. Every now and again my mum would put a target at the world record and I’d say oh come on I’m never going to get that.

In 1995 a group of parents had got together from Cragside, tired with all the nepotism of the football clubs in Cramlington and worried that their children weren’t getting the opportunity to play competitive football. So they started of a new football club connected to Cragside school, originally called Cragside Cobras but eventually called Cramlington Cobras. Of course, my brother was one of the first players to sign up and as they were with me, my parents got heavily involved and supported him 100%, as did I. We went to watch every match home and away in all conditions, even though Jonathan wasn’t a first team regular, more of a super-sub.

The football club were also very supportive of me and at a time when it was clear that my electric wheelchair was on it’s last legs having taken years of abuse from me throwing in it and generally driving it like I’d stolen it. Cragside Cobras decided to help me raise the money for a new electric wheelchair in the year that I was gunning for the Paralympics by doing the Great North Walk and having a fund-raising night at the local Catholic Social Club – the Benedictine. I had close links with Newcastle United and my friends John Burridge and Pavel Srnicek who was the first-team goalkeeper at the time, came along to support the fund-raising night. The electric wheelchair I wanted, a PowerTech 50, was the model up from the one I had and cost around £3,500. The Cobras managed to raise most of the money needed, and Newcastle United were kind enough to chip in the rest. Subsequently I was presented with the brand-new wheelchair at Newcastle’s training ground at Durham’s Maiden Castle, the whole first team were in the media photographs with me. It was a very sincere gesture from everyone involved and was yet another example of people believing in me, and gave me determination to reward their endeavour.

I did a lot of competitions this year up to the team selection date that was just after the DSE British Championships in Birmingham. Even though I already had the minimum qualifying standard from the previous year, I still had to show the selectors that it wasn’t a one-off and that I could string a series of consistent results together. From what I had been throwing in training I knew I was capable of doing that but reproducing training performances in training is not easy, as I would find out. Phil Peat was the Cerebral Palsy team manager, I had gotten to know him well from training weekends at Nottingham and Stoke Manderville and also at the Robin Hood Games in 1995 – he entered me into every competition he could find, from Scotland to Wales to give me every chance of selection.

My parents willingly drove me all over the UK, needless to say we broke the motability mileage limit by some way. I had been used to doing only about three competitions a year, so competing that much in a short period of about three months was a bit of a shock to the system and I repeatedly fell short of my training distances but still getting respectable marks of 22-23 metres, with the natural size and strength gains I had made. I was very aware that my technique wasn’t clicking in competition, as I was getting too tense and uptight.

Most of the competitions were a blur, and it shows how raw and naïve I was then that I didn’t record any of my results as I wasn’t aware of their significance. The one competition that sticks out in my mind was in Colwyn Bay, I mainly remember it because it took bloody ages to get there – about seven hours not including the hour or so it took us to find the Bed & Breakfast once we got to Colwyn Bay. It was just a small guest house, most of the Cerebral Palsy Sport athletes and coaches were staying there, it was a competition for throwers only, which made a refreshing change I thought – not that I don’t get on with trackies because I do, but they can be up their own backsides at times. Upon arrival we headed straight into the small backroom bar for something to eat, we joined the group that were already in there including Ray, Norman and Phil. The bar wasn’t quite extensive enough to cover the demands of my dad, Ray, Norman and Phil, so as the little old lady hostess tried to find any available alcohol she had, I left them to it and headed off to bed.

The next day it was lashing down with rain and the wind was gusting, it was generally the worst possible conditions for throwing. As I registered to get my numbers, the guy taking my name said in a strong Welsh accent ‘Oh, you’re the club thrower aren’t you, you’re coach Ray told me that you’ve thrown 28 metres in training’, I laughed and replied that I didn’t think I would throw that far today, but that I would try my best. I couldn’t believe that people there were aware of me and interested in watching me throw, but Ray always liked to talk about his athletes and talk them up, it made me more nervous but also more excited to throw as I liked the attention and expectation. The conditions weren’t getting any better by the time I went down to throw, however the conditions hadn’t affected my team-mate Danny who broke the Shot Putt world record just before I threw. That made me think, ‘God I’m the only athlete that doesn’t hold the world record’, because all Ray’s athletes were world record holders. I shouldn’t have been worrying about that though, and with chalk caked on my hands I went on to throw 24 metres, which was pretty good in the conditions. But it didn’t meet my expectations so I was unhappy, and as I left Colwyn Bay soaking wet with the prospect of a very long drive home, I vowed never to go to Wales again.

The last competition before team selection was the DSE British Championships, I had competed in the DSE Junior Championships since the age of 11 and this was just the senior level of that, I had never competed at this level before. I had also never given a thought to who I would be competing against if I got to Atlanta, I guess I was more focussed about what I had to do, and Ray had always said that it didn’t matter about who I competed against because with throwing the main person you compete against is yourself. I wasn’t aware of any other cerebral palsy athletes in my class from Great Britain but I knew that my event would be combined in the Paralympics with the tetraplegic class F51 – basically athletes paralysed from the chest down. From the Great Britain training weekends I knew of two F51 athletes on the squad, Jim Richardson and Richard Schabel, this would be the first time I had competed at the same event as them, even though we weren’t competing directly against each other as we stayed in our own classification groups for these Championships.

It still gave me an extra edge to do well, knowing that they were there I wanted to show what I was capable of. Being in Alexander Stadium, Birmingham, it was the first time I had competed in a stadium that big before, with 30,000 seats I was very nervous even though there was nobody in the seats. I was going to the toilet every ten minutes before my competition, mum was worried but Ray assured her that it was a good sign. This competition provided my first experience of going through a call room, as I’d been used to just turning up to throw on the field. It gave me a small taste of what it would be like at the Paralympics, sitting in a small pen-type area for half an hour with all your competitors as you wait to be taken down to the competition area is where the competition can be won and lost, and indeed your performance can be lost and found.

It was a hot day and I was getting a lot of attention, which I sort of getting used to but it still took me back a bit, both coaches and fellow athletes were interested in seeing me throw. At this competition I got into the circle and everything clicked for the first time, I threw a big personal best of over 26 metres and it was further than Jim or Richard could manage, a massive psychological boost for me.

The team selection meeting was on the Monday of the next week and despite my great performance at the weekend, I was very unsure and nervous about whether I would be picked. I just kept thinking of how severely disabled I was and how I wouldn’t be able to cope with going away on my own with the team, and that’s why they wouldn’t pick me, or so I thought. Phil Peat had told my mum that he would ring up after the meeting, I was off school having just sat me GCSE exams and so I was just hanging around the house, not able to focus on anything apart from waiting for the phone to ring. When Phil did ring up our house about mid afternoon time, my mum answered and handed the phone to me. I said hi and Phil said ‘Hello Stephen, it’s Phil. Just calling to let you know that you’re in the team’. I was gob-smacked at the way he just came out with it and instantly replied ‘You’re joking’, to which Phil said ‘Surely you expected to be going, you were one of the easy selections’. I started laughing and tried to get my head around what Phil was saying – I was going to the Paralympics in two months. I turned to my mum and said ‘I’m going’, and we hugged and she had a few tears, then she took the phone to speak to Phil about what this all meant.

My parents had been as unsure as me about whether they had not put much thought into what would happen if I did get selected. Pretty much as soon as Phil had phoned up, mum was contacting travel agents and looking through brochures for Atlanta, whilst working out how to pay for the holiday of a lifetime. We were also concerned about me going such a long way on my own, as the only time I’d flown previously was to the Isle of Man and the trip to Atlanta would be considerably longer than that. Phil assured my mum that I would be adequately looked after by the staff going with the team, and I was confident I would cope.

There was one more Great Britain training weekend at Stoke Manderville, it was mainly to get the team together and to dish out the team kit. I was proud to receive my first GB team kit, which came in a big sports bag and there was lots of it, I couldn’t believe it. But I was very fussy then and I liked all my clothes to be very baggy, so I kicked up a big song and dance about all my kit being too small, even though Phil and my mum tried to convince me that it looked a good fit. I made my mum stand in a massive queue with my bag to try and get a bigger size in everything, it seemed that nearly everyone had wrong sizes and a couple of hours later we got to the front, where despite arguing very hard, only managed to get a couple of t-shirts changed. So I would have to make do with what I had, I was not a happy bunny at all, until I got back into the dormitory and Noel Thatcher – who was a partially sighted runner – was excitedly trying his kit on and jogging up and down the dorm. Noel was much more experienced than me and he said ‘You know it’s all real when you get the kit. You know you’re going to the Paralympics’, and I suddenly thought to myself – here you are moaning about your kit not being baggy enough and this should be the proudest moment of your life.

I suppose that instance shows that I’ve never been someone who gets over-awed by things, even at that young age I was able to generally take things in my stride – not in an arrogant or disrespectful manner, I’m just very single-minded about what I want. At the weekend we had lots of talks on travelling, getting over jet-lag and preparing for the games. The holding camp was to be in Pensacola on a Navy base, it was just south of Atlanta and the whole Great Britain team would stay there for over a week. I met the woman who would be responsible for looking after me on the trip, Barbara Hoole, she was with the paraplegic squad and would also be looking after Jim and Richard who would be competing against me. The main thing I needed help with was meal times because I am pretty self-sufficient with everything else, I knew Barbara fairly well from squad weekends so I was happy with that arrangement and more importantly, my mum was happy.

Despite the flights being dear, my mum, dad and brother got a good deal to stay two weeks in a Holiday Inn in Atlanta, they also got good seats to the in-demand Opening and Closing Ceremonies. They were set to fly out after the FA Charity Shield at Wembly, which Newcastle United were taking part in following their second place league finish and Manchester United’s league and FA Cup double. My family all had tickets to go, but I would have to miss out on the trip to Wembly due to it being at the same time as I was at the holding camp in Pensacola. I wasn’t too disappointed as I was pretty excited about going away.

Just days before I was due to fly, I was in the street messing about with the cricket ball my friend Peter had bought me for my 16th birthday, when Peter came around the corner and said ‘Have you heard the news, we’ve just signed Alan Shearer for £15 million’, ‘Seriously?’ I said and ran into the house to see it all over the news. I was ecstatic and said to Peter ‘Well that’s 25 goals a season for the next 10 years’, strange how close to the truth that would turn out to be. In truth, when Alan played for Blackburn he wasn’t my favourite footballer, in fact when he came off the bench to score against us, I hated him. But players like that are hated by all supporters apart from the team’s they play for, and I’m as fickle as any football supporter, so as soon as he signed for Newcastle I loved him. Mum stood in the queue at the club shop for hours because I wanted a shirt with ‘Shearer 9’ on the back to go away with. Being mum, she made sure I had it.