Review of DSActive South East Football Festival 2019

Posted on: November 27, 2019

During the 2019-2020 season we will be running three regional Football Festivals, in the South East, South West and the North.

The festivals are aimed at all players with Down’s syndrome, whatever their abilities. The aim of the day is for the players to have fun and play matches against other clubs.

Here’s what happened at the recent South East Football Festival…

On 16 November, the South East Football Festival 2019 took place at the Charlton AFC training ground.

We welcomed nine teams to the event and played over 18 6-aside matches. For many of the players, it was the first they’d had the opportunity to compete in a match.


Sam (Alan’s Niece) said:

“Alan had the best time on Saturday. He was so happy and kept hugging me and saying thank you! He never plays that much football.”

One of the clubs competing was Charlton Upbeats.

Charlton Community Trust have been supporting the DSActive programme and running sessions for people with Down’s syndrome for over 10 years and everyone feels very welcome at the club. Charlton Upbeats have juniors and adult teams. The players play matches regularly and enjoy trips away with the team.


Terry, Head Coach of Charlton Upbeats said:

“Personally over the 10 years of working on the project it is by far the most attached I am to a project and we run over 30 in our department alone, that’s purely because its like a small network/ family and we have grown close too not only the players but parents / carers as well we have known most of the group for 10 years so we have seen the lads develop as players and people and hope that the weekly session over all these years has helped to contributed to that they are now. You get to know the family’s quite well over that space of time and are not looked at as Charlton coaches but more as friends.”

To check out the South East Football Festival, Charlton AFC have produced a video of the day which you can watch here. 

If you would like to find out more, please feel free to contact the DSActive Team on email (dsactive@downs-syndrome.org.uk) or by telephone on 0333 12 12 300.