Ray Westbrook: England fan and Amputee Football star

Ever played for England in front of 40,000 screaming fans? No, neither have I - but Ray Westbrook has. Ray plays up front for the Portsmouth and England amputee football teams. Sneaky Ray also plays able-bodied football on the side – and his opponents have no idea he’s missing a leg!

What are your memories of watching football when you were younger?

My auntie took me to a game against Man United years ago in the cup. Pompey got a draw at Old Trafford and forced a return leg at Fratton Park – my auntie took me and we stood in the away end at Fratton Park. [Editor’s note – as a fellow Pompey fan, I was at the Old Trafford game!]

But the best memory is when they played in the cup final, and I took my daughter and one of my mates came with us. And we watched Pompey lift the FA Cup – when Sol [Campbell] went up to lift the FA cup, I was there! [Me too!]

My favourite England tournament was France 1998. Not that England did well, just that I watched every game with my pals, and we took it in turn hosting games at our houses — was a good summer of beers and BBQs!

Who are your favourite England players today?

They’ve got lots of good youth, like Foden and Mount. They’re really busy players – by busy, I mean they’ve got lots of energy. It’s a bit sad to see Kane in a bit of a rut at the moment. But my favourite England player is probably Rashford. He’s just exciting to watch. When he gets the ball, near on every time you think he’s going to score.

So how did you end playing amputee football?

I played football all my life, and I got my injury playing football. I got kicked in a game and it triggered a cancerous growth in my ankle. And then it was in the bone and would have spread up my bone to my torso until it killed me. So, they had to cut it off before it could spread any further. So that was when I was 14. I’m 39 now.

My Dad was football, my Granddad was football, and it was just like instilled in me. So once I’d had my operation my Dad obviously still wanted me to play football and be active. Tried lots of different stuff at the beginning, like wheelchair basketball – even pigeon-racing! He [Dad] bought pigeons. I don’t know if it was for me, but he used me as an excuse. So, we did pigeon-racing for a couple of years.

Then after about six or seven months, as soon as I had my prosthetic fitted, he’d take me out and make me run around the fields. So, he [Dad] was kind of the rehab person in that respect who got me back playing football. And then I just ended up becoming good enough with my [prosthetic] leg on to play for a team that I previously played for before I had my leg off [amputated]. So I just went back and continued to play for them and then played football for Sunday and Saturday teams until I was about 24. The News – The Portsmouth News – done an article on me as an amputee playing able-bodied football in Sunday League. And that article got to the London Metro paper, and the England manager saw it and got my details, and it just went from there.

As an amputee, how do you play able-bodied football?

To be fair, a lot of people I play against even now – because I still play some Sunday League with my mates – I play against some teams who don’t know who I am. So, one of their mates will say to them, “That guy’s only got one leg”, and then they’ll come up to me after the game and go, “Mate, I didn’t even know you had one leg!”.  I can hide it quite well. You’ve got, like, foam padding that goes round it [the prosthetic leg] that shapes out like the calf of your leg – it’s for protection for them and for me. So once the sock’s pulled over it, it just looks like you’ve got a knee support on – so you can kinda get away with it.

So, you played amputee football for England before you played for any amputee club?

I didn’t go through a [club] pathway; I was just lucky. That was in 2006 when I first got called up [age 24]. I used to travel to Lilleshall to train [with England]. I was terrible when I first started: I couldn’t stand up on my crutches or run…I’d get the ball and fall over. It didn’t take me long to pick it up. The next year, 2007, we went to a tournament in Turkey, and unfortunately on my debut I got sent off! We were playing France, and we were winning 3-0 or something. I was a fiery player anyway, when I was younger – I’ve calmed down a bit now. Because obviously the French knew I was new, they’re like hustling me and knocking me with their crutches. From corners, in the normal game people pull each other’s shirt. But where you’ve got your crutches, it’s hard to grab people’s shirt, so the next tactic is to put your crutch on their shoe so they can’t move! They were doing all them dirty tactics from a corner when I’d just come on. And I’d reacted and flicked one of my crutches back, and the ref saw it and gave me straight. I was in the stand after that crying my eyes out for about half an hour.

When I first started for England, there wasn’t a [amputee] club in Portsmouth. They were only four teams around the country. It’s kind of a niche sport, amputee football; it’s hard to find young men that want to play football on crutches because it looks a bit scary if you were to watch it and jump in straight away.

When you explain amputee football to someone that’s never seen it, you’d think it’s just like walking football…you just do a little move on your crutches and kick the ball like a foosball [table football] player. But when you watch a full international match it’s a lot higher pace than you’d think.

What has been your most exciting tournament playing for England?

The most exciting was the Euros in 2017, in Turkey. It was a tournament that we didn’t go into with much expectation, to be honest with you. We had a new manager, Owen Coyle Junior – which is Owen Coyle’s son. And he was… well, he still is quite young, and he was fresh on the scene at the time. He had some good ideas, and we all bought into his theory. We just kinda took every game as it come, but there was a great team togetherness in that tournament. Russia was previous world champions, and we beat them 1-0 in our group. Then we beat Ireland and beat Greece, so we finished top of our group. Russia got Turkey in the next round – that was basically the two favourites for the tournament, so there was a big cheer from us as soon as they got put together and we didn’t have to play one of the favourites.

We got through, and I scored against Spain in the semis. The day before the final, against Turkey, they moved the game from the training ground where we’d been playing all the fixtures, in to the main Besiktas stadium because it was Turkey in the final, in Istanbul. It was near on a full stadium – there were, like, 35,000 people in there [records show it was even more – around 40,000]. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced in amputee football. In Turkey, amputee football is really high class. They have an amputee football show on after their version of Match of the Day. So, they’re all professionals, whereas our England team at the moment are like a charity. We have to fundraise our own money to go away to tournaments – every player has to raise £1,500. So, we’re playing against a team that’s a professional set-up in a stadium that’s out of this world… To be fair, we done really well. I scored in that game to make it 1-1.

When I scored the goal, it was the strangest feeling I’d had ever. Everything just went silent…There was a ringing in my ears. I can remember my mates all in my face [cheering], but I didn’t know what they were saying as I couldn’t hear a thing. My ears just stopped working for, like, thirty seconds. And then they scored in the last minute.

That was definitely by far the best tournament and the best game of my career so far.

So, that was Ray Westbrook! And here’s a two-minute highlight video of THAT 2017 Euros final and here’s an article telling you more about that match. The next amputee Euros will be hosted by Warsaw in September 2021, and the next Amputee Football World Cup will be held in Turkey in October 2022.