Halifax manager’s Wild ride with England amputee team
PETE WILD’S three years in charge of the England amputee football team took him on a journey he will never forget.
The Halifax boss took the team to two World Cups, finishing fifth in Russia in 2012 - “we should have done better but lost out to a dubious penalty” - and then Mexico in 2014 - “we didn’t live up to our expectations” when they finished 10th.
But that’s only part of the story.
It began with an invitation from Wild’s friend and England manager at the time, Adam Temple.
“He asked me if I fancied going to Dubai for six days to do a bit of coaching just before Christmas 2011 - dead right I will!
“Then he phoned me around February 2012 to say he’d resigned but that he’d put my name forward for the job.
“I did a lot of disability coaching when I was younger for the FA and various people, but I got on well with the amputee lads, and ended up moving into that and loved it.
“We went to 15 countries, two World Cups, three or four tournament wins along the way.
I loved it. It taught me about dealing with players away from home, dealing with squads, dealing with adults with a range of needs, and looking after staff.
“I was only late 20s but it taught me a lot about life.”
Wild, like his players, was not paid, with the team raising funds through donations and sponsorships.
“We had to beg, steal and borrow to get facilities, drive up and down the country because lads had to pay their own petrol to come to training weekends,” said Wild. “Considering where we are as a charity, we’ve punched well above our weight.
“In 2006 the FA dropped the amputee team and weren’t funding them anymore, generally because they’re not a paralympic sport and the world governing body of amputee football is shocking. So we went on our own, we set-up our own charity and completely detached from the FA.
“In my final years, because I worked for the FA, I brought them closer together, but I believe they’ve just turned down the FA’s offer of coming back under the FA banner.”
Wild’s first tournament in charge was the Club World Championship in May 2012, in which they lost 5-0 in the final to Russia, who had also beaten them twice in the International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation World Games 2011 in Dubai for which Wild had accepted the initial invitation. Also in 2012 there were tournaments in England, Poland and Russia, before a return there for that year’s World Cup
The following year saw competitions in Ireland and Poland and in 2015, another tournament in Poland before the World Cup in Mexico.
“We were in Culiacán, which is the sixth most dangerous place in the world,” Wild recalled. There were armed guards wherever you went, 16 days of looking after 18 players and staff thinking ‘oh my God, we could all get kidnapped at any point’.”
Players would become part of the team through a range of circumstances, says Wild.
“It was generally through illness or injury. We had a lad called Jamie Tregaskiss who was in Manchester City’s academy, he fell in the school playground, got a cyst on his knee that turned cancerous and had to have his leg amputated.
“You learn about all these great people. I’d love to get them to training at Halifax one day and do some five-a-sides with them, hopefully we can at some point. It’d be great for our lads to show them what life is really like.”
Wild left the role in January 2015, but retains a huge fondness for the team and his time in charge.
“I had to give it up because I went to Oldham full-time, but I met some unbelievable people who I still speak to today and people I still have a fondness for. I keep my eye on what goes on. I don’t get to training or games as much as I’d like to but what an unbelievable organisation.”