SOCCER — WITH NO LIMITS
Veteran wants academy for kids missing limbs
The thunderous sound of Robert Ferguson’s neon green cleats kicking a soccer ball melded with the click-clacking beat of his crutches as he made the pass.
His teammate, Foday Dumbuya, dashed forward, his own crutches digging into the grass as he foiled an opponent’s attempted interception by rolling the ball away with his lone foot.
Ferguson, a 16-year combat veteran, and Dumbuya, a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone, represented the Lone Star Amputee Soccer Houston team Saturday in an exhibition match against new members of the Haitian National Amputee Soccer team at Lents Family Park near The Woodlands.
“It’s the most popular game in the world,” Ferguson, 38, said. “We just play it a bit differently.”
No players are allowed to wear prosthetics for the game and their crutches cannot touch the ball. Typically the goalie is an amputee missing an arm. The match consists of 25-minute halves with a 10-minute break in between.
With the holiday weekend costing the Houston team several of its players, teenage able-bodied members of the Houston Dynamo youth academy filled in, making sure to only kick the ball with their weaker leg.
Even though the Dynamo youths had the apparent physical advantage, at several points in the game their amputee teammates and opponents beat them to the ball.
“It’s 10 times harder than regular soccer, but we can go fast,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson took to soccer at a young age and even played semiprofessionally in Germany when he was stationed there with the Air Force. After serving in both Korea and Afghanistan, Ferguson’s military career ended back on U.S. soil when a tank took his right leg during a training mission at a Ford Hood base in 2009.
In the first eight years of recovery, Ferguson found himself at a loss with what to do with his life. The loss of his limb and post-traumatic stress disorder took a toll. Then he heard about amputee soccer. Friendly match
Ferguson is now the Southern Regional Representative of the American Amputee Soccer Association and captain of the Lone Star Houston team.
His goal is to create an amputee soccer youth academy to energize and embolden children missing limbs.
Dumbuya, 32, who moved to Houston in 2006 under asylum and eventually gained citizenship, has lived without his right leg since a stray bullet cut through the bone at age 13. The wound reached a level of infection that warranted amputation.
The loss of his limb, and his forced migration from home, did not deter Dumbuya from continuing to pursue the sport he loves.
At Saturday’s game, he scored two goals for his team, including one where the ball flew over the Haitian goalie’s head and curved into the net.
“You only can’t do what you tell yourself you can’t do,” Dumbuya said.
Throughout the friendly international match, orders were yelled out in both English and French as coaches directed game play. Fritz Vincent of the Haitian team made several impressive passes during the first half of the game, but in the end, the American team won 6-3. Team among top 10
Vincent, who lost his right leg during the 2010 earthquake that devastated his country, said that he still considered it a good game and a blessing to play.
“Back in Haiti, when you are missing a limb, you are unwanted, pushed aside,” Vincent said. “But God blessed us and, with His blessing, we are able to play this game and see the world through it.”
The Haitian team is ranked among the top 10 amputee soccer teams in the world.
At the end of the match, Haitians and Americans stood together for a photo, holding their respective country flags, leaving their black, silver and blue crutches lying on the grass beside them.