Shelbée Clarke is a 28-year-old amputee footballer and the Head Coach and Football Inclusion Officer for SSG Celestials, the first-ever football club in Bedfordshire for children and young people with special educational needs (SEND). Her devoted work was recognised when she became the winner of the Bobby Moore Award as part of the FA’s Grassroots Football Awards 2023.
Our editor, Emma Purcell, had the pleasure of speaking to Shelbée Clarke about going through bone cancer and having her leg amputated, getting into amputee football, setting up her SEND club SSG Celestials and winning the Bobby Moore Award.
The FA’s Grassroots Football Awards took place on Sunday 6th August at Wembley Stadium ahead of the Community Shield between Manchester City FC and Arsenal FC. The event looked to celebrate community champions who have played a special role across the grassroots game.
One of the recipients and winner of the Bobby Moore Award was Shelbée Clarke from Kempston, Bedfordshire.
After playing throughout her school years, Shelbée Clarke found her football journey take an unexpected turn when she was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 18. Despite facing the challenges of chemotherapy, she remained resilient and pursued her dream of becoming a PE teacher. Unfortunately, she was re-diagnosed with bone cancer at university, leading to a major surgery and amputation above her left knee.
Shelbée Clarke began to embark on her coaching career, initially working with a girls’ grassroots team, before setting up SSG Celestials, the first-ever SEND football club in Bedfordshire, dedicated to children with special educational and mental health needs. The club has rapidly grown, with over 70 registered children (and their families) benefiting from the inclusive environment Shelbée has created.
Shelbée Clarke devotes hours every week to coach and help young people and children and manages to deliver this amongst a busy schedule whilst also playing for Chelsea and England amputee.
Read on to find out more about Shelbée Clarke in her own words.
Shelbée Clarke going through bone cancer and amputation
Can you tell us what it was like receiving treatment for bone cancer and eventually having your left leg amputated?
I had Ewig Sarcoma in my pelvis, and then I had a year of treatment. I was quite poorly over that time. After a year, I went into remission but then two and a half years later, a different type of bone cancer returned. It came back. Instead, I wasn’t able to have the chemo or radio like I did the time before. So we had to do surgery where they removed the left side of my pelvis. All I’ve got left is just the ball and socket joint.
I had a lot of complications with that surgery and had to have eight more surgeries. I had sepsis and meningitis. Then when I had the surgery, it left my leg from my shin down paralysed. The plan was to amputate from the knee down so that I could use my own knee and get a prosthetic leg.
But due to all the complications, we weren’t able to do that as fast as we would have liked to. I ended up going for an MRI scan for my usual checkup and as I came out my hip popped out. So we popped it back in, which was normal (it still is normal for me. It’s weird for everybody else).
As I popped my leg back in, it caught the artery, which then caused a big blood clot and completely blocked the circulation. This then caused toxins to build up to my knee so they weren’t able to save the knee. So that’s why I went on to become an above-knee amputee.
I’ve always been positive when it comes to all of my illnesses because, especially like my first one, I was misdiagnosed and was told it was all in my head for so long that when I had a diagnosis, I finally had an answer and a way of fixing it so I was quite happy.
It was scary at some points of it. But when living with a disability, you just get on with it and push through each day the best that you can. I’ve had a lot of people support me, and with them, I managed to push through to the other side.
When I was bed-bound and housebound, I was very frustrated about not being able to go out and do things, and go play football of course.
I always knew that at some point I was going to be playing football in some sort of sense. That was always a reason for me to push through each day. Being an amputee sucks and it has its really bad days with phantom pains and stuff. But other than that, I’m not doing too bad with it. I like my little leg now, so it’s not too bad.
Shelbée Clarke becoming an amputee footballer
How did you fall in love with football and how did you get introduced to amputee football?
I’m one of eight children – there’s a lot of us – I’ve got three younger sisters and four older brothers, so I’m right in the middle, being the best one of course. They were all footballers, all of them. So I came out of the womb kicking a football. That’s how I see it, anyway. So as long as I can remember, I’ve played football.
When it came to amputee football, during my first cancer, we had these weekends away with the Teenage Cancer Trust. The England captain at the time and the goalkeeper had come and done a demonstration of amputee football to show us that there is football that we can play.
At the time I had two legs and I gave it a go using crutches. So I knew of amputee football and as soon as I became paralysed, I knew straight away that it was something I was definitely going to try and get involved in and I have done ever since.
What’s it like playing for Chelsea and England and have you won many leagues or tournaments in your career?
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It’s been a bit surreal. So before we were at Chelsea we were at Peterborough. This is only our first season at Chelsea. Over at Peterborough, in our last season with them, we won the FA Cup and the England Championship, so we’ve won those in the past couple of years. It was just before the pandemic and so we’ve only just restarted our football again this year.
Going forward we’re coming to the end of this season and then we’ve got our England women camps in November. We went over to Poland in March and that was absolutely insane, surreal and unbelievable.
It was such an incredible experience because I was able to train with an actual women’s side. It was nice and I wanted to see where I was at in that realm of football because I’m the only female who plays in the senior level of amputee football in the UK. I have always, and continue to, play with the men.
The next year, we’ve got Women England camps every month, so that’ll be really nice to have. The women are coming in and we’ve got a few juniors as well. It will be great for them to see that there is a group of amputee women playing and that they can play.
Shelbée Clarke setting up the SEND club SSG Celestials
How did you start your coaching career and go on to set up the team SSG Celestials?
At the time, when I was with my ex-partner, my stepdaughter wanted to play football mainly because my stepson was, so she had to be involved. Of course, as children do. She only lasted two weeks, but that’s fine.
But the local club that my sisters grew up playing for, and I played a couple of seasons there for them, I took her down there because I knew the club and they asked if I’d be interested in being an assistant coach. I was like, ‘Yes, absolutely. I’d love to’.
At the time I was quite housebound. So those Monday, Thursday and Saturday mornings were my release to go out and not worry about being stuck in bed and being in agony. I was able to do something that I absolutely loved and see the girls develop into the footballers they were. It was an absolute dream to see and that just made me want to become a better coach. I went on to coach for that local grassroots team for four years.
As for SSG Celestials, Chris, who is my co-founder of the club, had a daughter who played for the grassroots girls team I coached. He had this idea, but he needed someone who was able to bring life to that idea, so we met for coffee and we brainstormed as much as we could and planned what we could do going forward.
This included a six-week trial period just to see how it would go and to see if it would progress onto something more.
So we did that and the numbers started growing slowly at first. We only started with three children in September, and we now have over 70, which is incredible. We’ve added more days and more hours just so we can meet every child’s needs. Not just for them, but for the parents as well, as they’ve got work and other responsibilities too.
As well as in Bedford, we have spread out to towns right next to us, so that it’s not too far to travel, but we’re able to go over and be there every week to deliver sessions to them.
So we came together, put our crazy brains together and ended up starting the best club that I’ve ever come across. It’s just been a wild ride. It’s very different from coaching mainstream grassroots teams to coaching children with additional needs.
It’s just the greatest and we learn more and more each day that we spend with them. It is going to be a continuous learning curve for us, for them and for everyone around special needs football.
SEND children are bloody awesome. Those kids are brilliant. They’ve got such little characters and sometimes I just love to be in their world for a minute because they seem like they’re having so much fun. They’ve just got no care in the world. I’m like, ‘I want to be that carefree for just a minute. I don’t want any stress. I just want to chill and be in my own head’. But no, my head stresses. I don’t want to be there. They are just amazing and I love them because they really are incredible children.
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Can you tell us more about some of the SSG Celestials squad and whether they’ve competed/won in leagues/tournaments?
At the moment it is just training sessions. We’ve got plans in the woodwork for matches and tournaments. For example, we may have our Monday teams versus our Wednesday teams and have a little disability festival, which they can enjoy together.
We’re waiting for the numbers to build up as best they can to give them as much football as possible. Our kids vary completely. We’ve got kids with ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy and many other different syndromes.
We’ve got this huge variety of disabilities in the club that we’re able to meet each of their needs. We will make something that is accessible and inclusive for them, no matter what that means for us to do.
Some children struggle to stay on task or are nonverbal. We work around it and make it as best that we can and we don’t give them too many instructions. For example, too much information can distract them and confuse them and that’s no help.
I have ADHD, so I know how quickly distracted we can get. We’ve got a huge variety of children, but it just makes it so much better because then the children as well have each other to look up to.
Weirdly enough, they come to the club and they say they feel normal. I don’t think normal is a thing. What is normal? But they feel when they come to the club, they don’t feel judged if they’re having a sensory overload or when they’re stimulating themselves and making noises or clapping, we’re not looking at them funny, we’re kind of going, ‘Okay, I can clap too, let’s go. Let’s do this.’
We get excited about each little milestone they reach. They’re just amazing. I just love them so much!
Before Easter, we were just doing different drills and games with them but now I’ve implemented within the plans for each week that in the last 15 minutes, they get to have a game so that they can learn the rules of the game – learn how to do throw-ins, learn the offside rule and just learning every part of football. They’re not just coming to have a bit of fun but learning as well.
Most of the time, they don’t even realise they’re learning, which is the best way of learning. They manage to take in information better when it’s adapted to their understanding.
That definitely helps that we’ve got all these staff members who volunteer to come and help and just want to give the best support for these kids because they deserve to play football as much as anybody else does.
I’d encourage anyone to consider volunteering – you don’t need to have played football or even know a lot about the game. We all have human skills that can be used to develop sessions, support players and even ease communication across a club.
We have 25 staff here at Celestials and they’re all voluntary. We have a mentor structure in place as well whereby coaches support assistant coaches and broader staff, so there is a solid support structure in place.
How do you manage the workload of playing and coaching football?
Carefully, very carefully to be honest. So my coaching is on a Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday, and my training is on a Saturday. Whether that be Chelsea or England. The England camps are over a weekend and our Chelsea training is every other weekend as well on Saturdays. So it does fit really nicely.
But I think once we get started again, it starts getting busier and if we have more kids join, we’ll likely have more days. So then I’d have to make sure that I’m giving myself time to rest because my body’s been through a lot over the years. I need to sleep and rest when I can, and make the best out of each situation.
Would you ever consider senior coaching?
That would be a dream, don’t get me wrong. What I’m doing right now is the dream I never had. But I’m just seeing where it takes me and if I can go up to a higher level, then amazing, but only if I can still do my Celestial kids because I wouldn’t like to leave them unless I’m able to hand it over to someone that I can trust to do it justice.
But yes, I would never turn down an opportunity to be able to coach senior level and I can at least tell them off a bit more. So that would be nice.
Shelbée Clarke winning the Bobby Moore Award
How does it feel to be the winner of the Bobby Moore Award and be presented with it at Wembley Stadium?
It was surreal. I’m very rarely speechless but that I was. When they phoned me to tell me I’d won it, I asked if they rang the right person. Going to Wembley was an experience that I’ll never, ever forget and to be able to share it with my family was such an incredible honour.
Also, being able to take the match ball out at the Community Shield game and to go on to the Wembley pitch as well was such a huge honour. Unless you’re normally playing, you’re not allowed on the actual pitch, but as winners, we were taken on the pitch.
Before I’d lost my leg, I made a bucket list and one of them was to go to Wembley and be on the pitch and take a ball on the pitch, whether that be carrying it or kicking it, regardless, I was still on the pitch with a ball, so I’ll take it. And to have a sold-out Wembley cheering you was definitely something.
We had a few guests at the awards including two former Lionesses Rachel Yankee and Sue Smith and current men’s England manager Gareth Southgate, which blew my mind a little bit. I got talking to Gareth and told him I was going to take his job – why not? So when you asked if I was aiming for that level, that’s where I’m aiming because I’ve already told him, so it’s fine.
Presenting the award was Bobby’s wife, Stephanie Moore, who was absolutely lovely, and Sir Jeff Hurst, who was a fellow player of the World Cup winning England squad in 1966, and a close friend of Bobby.
It was such an honour to even be handed it from them. When they brought this plinth out with this Bobby Moore figure on top of it, I couldn’t help but laugh because I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘No way, that is not for me. Oh, my goodness, wow!’
The trophy stays at Wembley, which is fine, but I have my own trophy that will be centre stage in the living room. The plinth will stay at Wembley so when people go on the Wembley tours, they’ll actually be taken around and shown the plinth and told about me, who I am and why I won the award, which is cool.
Shelbée Clarke shares her thoughts on disability football in the future
Do you think disability football should be broadcast more?
We’ve only had the FA Cup finals two or three times, so once a year it’s on TV, which just blows your mind because there is so much disability football out there and young children with disabilities aren’t seeing enough disabled people around. They’re not seeing more people like themselves on TV being broadcast as professional athletes other than the Paralympics.
We don’t ever see anything and I think that is definitely something that does need to change because kids need to see that. If they work hard enough, disabled or not, they can become a professional. If that’s something that you love doing, and it’s something we can work towards, that in the future is a thing, then I’ll be absolutely over the moon.
What advice would you give to people aspiring to be disabled footballers?
Just get stuck in – get some crutches, get a football, go at your own pace and build up your skill as you go. Jump into it it – or hop into it – so to say.
Just getting into it is the first and hardest hurdle. Once you’re there, you realise what such a supportive network and family you’ve got around you. You just instantly fall in love with it.
There’s also the pan-disability teams, which is any disability. There are a lot of pan teams around, but you wouldn’t know it unless you actually look for it yourself and that’s not how things should work. You see adverts everywhere, so why aren’t there adverts for disability football when there are so many disabled people in the UK who, I’m sure, love football, but have no idea that there are ways for them to play, regardless of their ability and needs.
Depending on the needs you’ve got, just get stuck in. Find a local team or reach out to me. We are always happy to help anyone get involved.
You can follow Shelbée Clarke on Twitter and Instagram.
To find out more about SSG Celestials and how you or your child can get involved, visit their website or follow them on Instagram.