17/10/2025
Congratulations to Stephen D Haigh, who has been highly commended by the FA in the Coach of The Year Category at the Grassroots Football Awards!!
FA Coach of the year-
Disability Pathway
Stephen Haigh has IVIC Syndrome which for him means he was been born deaf, with no speech and physically he has shortened arms. This has put strain on his knees and he has had to have multiple operations on them which stopped him from playing.
However none of this stops him being dedicated to his chosen sport and his beloved club Bradford City AFC, he is someone who really enjoys and gets the most from his life and he is, by putting himself out there and has pushed himself to qualify as a coach and support junior players, being a role model for them and other adults with disabilities.
Volunteering at Bradford City Community Foundation he would attend school football sessions and penalty shoot outs with the disability coach Paul Jubb and help regularly in those sessions.
He also did his Level 1 FA Coaching qualifications in 2017 and volunteers at Bradford City Disability FC’s four sessions per week as an assistant coach. He helps by giving some of them one to one support when they first start if they are unsure about joining in as well as generally helping with kit, sessions and refereing games.
He is also the coach/manager for the U12’s team which has had some fantastic success over the past few seasons, as well as starting this season to coach one of the adult five a side teams.
He attends just about every training session, every social event and is also active on social media promoting events.
The winner gets to go to the Community Shield game at Wembley stadium next season! Which hopefully will have his other' favourite team Liverpool playing!!
Good luck tonight Stephen!! xx
