by Ewan Coleman

With the rugby World Cup entering the semi final stage, there is excitement building as we near the end of the tournament, however another exciting version of the sport that has went under the radar is wheelchair rugby.

Wheelchair rugby is a game of smashing into each other as it is one of the only full contact disability sports, however a sport that is great fun and provides a great competitive edge.

Currently there is only one team based in Scotland, the Glasgow Caledonian Crushers. 

Chris Dempster of the club spoke about the benefits of playing the sport.

“It’s fun, you’re involved in a style of sport that is not very common in wheelchair sports. There is a lot of single player sports, however this is a team sport and to have the opportunity to engage with folks who have shared similar life experiences” 

Elliot Cooper of the club also spoke to us about opportunities to promote and the challenges that have came along with that.

“ I think there is definitely opportunities to further promote the game, Channel 4 showed the wheelchair rugby World Cup and I believe it did get good ratings. But it is a Paralympic sport that is quite challenging as it involves full physical contact with disabled individuals which able bodied audiences may find uncomfortable”

In March of this year, Great Britain won the women’s wheelchair cup in Paris, an achievement that Jennifer Lang hopes can inspire more women to play the game.

“At the moment we are trying to get a lot more women involved in wheelchair rugby and in March the women’s cup was over in france and GB won gold so that was amazing” 

If you want to find out more about wheelchair rugby and Scotland’s only team visit their Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/GlasgowWheelchairRugbyClub