Setting New Year goals for 2026 isn’t going to be easy for up-and-coming young footballer Sophie.
After all, bringing home a medal from the Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics last month is certainly going to take some beating.
For some, podium success on the global stage could be considered a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
But Sophie’s thoughts are already turning to her chances of securing a place in the next big tournament - the 2027 World Deaf Football Championships in Australia.
“I would hope that I would stand a good chance of being selected,” said the 18-year-old from Eaglescliffe, who has just represented her country in Fukushima as part of the Great Britain Deaf Women’s Football team.
Still in the early stages of her sporting career, she is even considering Team GB’s next shot at the Summer 2029 Deaflympics in Athens.
It’s all giving Sophie, a Bede Sixth Form College student currently studying her A levels, a unique chance to travel the world.
As well as being a skilled footballer who plays at home for Norton Ladies FC, she explained that discovering deaf football three years ago has widened the net of opportunity in her sport.
Sophie, who has moderate to severe bilateral hearing loss, now has a passion for both the hearing and the deaf game.
“Playing at this level has opened-up opportunities that I might not otherwise have had,” she said.
“The main difference in the game is, if you wear hearing aids, you have to take them off to put everyone on an equal playing field.”
The deaf game is started and stopped by the wave of a flag from the referee and from there, without verbal communication, the team must be even more vigilant to what’s going on around them and find different ways for communicating with each other on the pitch.
Sophie, a centre midfielder and left back, first represented England Deaf Ladies in a friendly match at 15 and in 2024 she was part of the lineup that secured Great Britain’s place in the Deaflympics with a win against Poland Deaf Women at Hanley Town FC.
As a self-funded team, the GB women have worked hard to raise the funds to travel to Tokyo where they faced tough competition from the United States, Japan, Australia and Kenya.
Sophie, who played every game of the tournament, said: “With just a small number of countries in the competition we hoped that we could get a medal.”
Of competing on the world stage at the J-Village Stadium, Pitch No. 3 in Fukushima Prefecture and getting their moment on the podium, she said: “It was amazing and different to anything I have ever experienced before.”
Ever competitive, while she believed the sliver could have been achievable, Sophie added: “It was a huge relief to take third place.”
In its 100th year, the Deaflympics is a global multi-sport competition that offers a platform for athletes who are deaf or hard of hearing to compete at an elite level.
Back in the classroom, Sophie studies PE, politics and religion, philosophy and ethics at Bede Sixth Form College in Billingham. As part of the college’s Institute of Sport and Education, supporting talented young athletes to continue to progress in their sport alongside their academic studies, she plays for the Bede Women’s Football Academy in partnership with Durham Women’s Football Club.
With eyes firmly turned to what comes next, Tokyo already feels a million miles away for Sophie, that is until she picks up that medal!
