Cerebral Palsy Cup final: Norwich City aiming to add trophy to CP league title

Norwich City hope to complete an “amazing” double by winning the Cerebral Palsy Cup final this weekend.

They will face holders North East & Yorkshire at St George’s Park, Burton-upon-Trent, in one of six finals in the climax of the FA Disability Cup.

Norwich qualified by winning the eight-team National CP League.

“We started [the team] a couple of years ago and finished runners-up last year,” said Norwich’s disability development manager Darren Hunter.

“We just missed out getting into this final – there’s two ways you can qualify, either by winning the National League or the CP League Cup.

“We lost in the [League Cup] final to North East Yorkshire. There’s already a little bit of a rivalry there even though we’ve only been going a couple of years,” he told BBC Radio Norfolk.

Norwich had to win their last three games to take the title and did so impressively, scoring 15 goals in the process and conceding only three.

Hunter said the team are “buzzing” for the final – which will be played on Sunday at the Sir Alf Ramsey Arena, named after England’s 1996 World Cup-winning manager.

“Some of the boys have played there before but not [in a game of] this magnitude so I think it’s very much how do we prepare them for it emotionally. A lot of them are pretty grounded and focused so I don’t think that will be too difficult.”

He continued: “We’ve had a lot of preparation around it over the last few weeks, we’ve had a production company filming the boys, doing some profile stuff, making some videos, really making them feel important, and so they should because it’s a big occasion.

“We’re staying up there on the Saturday night to kind of get used to the environment and it will be an amazing weekend.”

North East & Yorkshire beat CP North West on penalties following a 4-4 draw in last year’s final – the third time they had lifted the trophy in four years.

It was the sixth time the Disability Cup weekend had taken place, having been established in 2016.

They will have the edge in experience and Hunter said: “They’re a lot older than us so physicality will probably play a little bit of a part in it. But if we play as well as we can, physicality doesn’t always matter in a game.

“If we move the ball quick enough and do what we should be doing, I think we’ll be fine.”

Hunter has been named grassroots coach of the year by the Norfolk FA, an award which left him “immensely proud and humbled”.

The Norwich Community Sports Foundation also runs powerchair and Down’s Syndrome teams, as well as coaching programmes.

“We’re always looking for pathways that can give opportunities like the boys have had with this one,” Hunter said.

“The programmes that we run can be very social but we can also do sessions where it’s a serious technical programme, when they can actually advance themselves and go on and play in leagues like these guys have.

“A couple of years ago we said ‘let’s put a CP team together, we’ve got enough players, let’s do it’. So we did it and it’s reaping the rewards.

“We make sure that all the programmes we run are sustainable and people want to be part of it.”

“The plan on Saturday is to go and watch a couple of the other finals,” Hunter added.

“Then on Sunday morning we’ll have breakfast, get the boys together and hopefully a good performance will follow at 10:30 when the game kicks off.”