Cardiff City Football Club Foundation Diabetes Project

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Cardiff City Football Club to discuss a very exciting new project that their Community Foundation has in the planning stage, to help people with type 1 diabetes. Working with the paediatric specialists at the Children’s Hospital of Wales, the charity Diabetes UK Cymru, other diabetes healthcare professionals and myself, the aim is to create a project to promote health and exercise for young people with the condition. Anyone who has read my blog before will be aware that participation in sport, especially for people with diabetes is one of my great passions. As I’ve spent the past 10 years as an international level athlete and feel that I’ve learnt and gained so much from an enjoyment perspective as well as from a health perspective with being involved in sport.

Doing sport can be a bit of a daunting thought for parents and healthcare professionals and the people with diabetes themselves. I’ve even been asked in the past whether sport is really something that I need to do, because it can make diabetes a little bit more complicated to manage. However, the benefits for me greatly outweigh anything else and include, better blood glucose control, increased confidence, more awareness of what’s going on in your body and the list goes on. But this is just some of what Cardiff City FC Community Foundation are hoping to achieve with their project proposal. They want to help provide education alongside a fun experience for people with diabetes within the sports setting. 

One of the things that I fed back about the project when I attended the initial meeting was just how much I would have loved something like this when I was younger. I would have loved the opportunity to learn more about managing my diabetes with how to do sport and integrate healthy eating, in a safe and encouraging environment. I didn’t take up sport until after I was diagnosed with diabetes and much of what I’ve learnt in the last decade has been trial and error. Along with visiting different healthcare professionals over the years and putting it altogether with what works best for me in my sport. But if I could have found this type of information in one place and at a sports organisation as prestigious as Cardiff City, I know I would have been thrilled. This is why this is such an amazing opportunity for the lucky attendees if the proposal goes ahead, because who knows... the next Steve Redgrave might be inspired by attending this event. But the main goal is to be fit for life through sport and health education!