I pitched my own job to the Irish FA

Accessibility doesn't just stop at football. An accessible society helps everybody.

On-screen text: Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Jason Browning. I am the disability access officer at the Irish FA.

On-screen text: What does your role involve?

So, first and foremost, one of my key areas and responsibilities is the application and organisation of accessible ticketing for a disabled person who is keen to access accessible tickets. I am the person that is responsible for supporting and organising that entire process from start to finish. So, whether that's a wheelchair accessible seat with a companion, whether that's specific seating for someone who is neurodiverse, or maybe that could be someone with not a recognised disability but maybe a medical condition that causes them to have limited mobility, for example. So, I would organise all those different applications for tickets and then, from that point, I would then make sure that we allocate the correct seating in relation to the needs.

On-screen text: When did your passion for football begin?

Like a lot of young people out there when I was growing up, things catch your interest as when you're a kid, and one of the things that I always enjoyed was sport in general, to begin with. So, I'd always been watching things on TV when I was younger, whether it be football, whether it be rugby, whether it be motorsports, you know, all those different things I'd be watching because I'm a competitive person, so seeing athletes at the cutting edge competing against each other was always something that really interested me.

On-screen text: What educational route did you take to get your job?

So, I started at an SEN school and the support was great for me. I have cerebral palsy, I can't walk, and it was great for me to be surrounded by people with various disabilities and various levels of disability too. I think that was a real eye-opener too in terms of what other people were able to do and achieve. So, I started there and I went to college first to study a BTEC Diploma in Sport and I did that for two years. And then, after that, I was offered to move on to their foundation degree. That was a foundation degree in Sport. And then I got accepted into university. I ended up basically writing this dissertation on disability access and disability access officers. So, I used that as an opportunity to say, okay, we don't have any of the provision in Northern Ireland at the time for accessibility support in football. So, essentially, my dissertation was a pitch for the job that I now have. That was great and you can have that document and do nothing with it if you want but I decided, no, I'll go to the association and I'll show them this. And thankfully the heads of the department that I spoke to at the time were very open to it and they thought it was a brilliant idea and it worked and I've been doing that for 5 and a half years now.

On-screen text: What has been your career highlight?

I suppose my career highlight would be assisting to facilitate the first ever powered wheelchair user being a mascot at Northern Ireland matches. That would be a career highlight. This particular kid was the first wheelchair user in an electric powered wheelchair to be a mascot and obviously those chairs are bigger, heavier, so there's a lot of different connotations there to facilitate that, especially on the grass. But I was part of the small team of colleagues that drove that and pushed against some bits of resistance for that to happen, and to see the kid on the pitch out with the team before the game kicked off was a massive heartwarming thing for me.

On-screen text: What are the benefits of working in football?

The difference that I get to make. There's some people that I've met through support that I've facilitated who never thought they could attend a football match, never mind any of the other things that we have done to support people. There are some people out there that never thought it was possible for them to go independently, or with support, to a football game. Myself and my team helped to eliminate that barrier and that's a real benefit of working in football for me.

On-screen text: Why in accessibility in sport important?

Accessibility doesn't just stop at football. An accessible society helps everybody. It's not just about getting into a football stadium or having a ramp so you can get into places. That helps everyone. If you have a lift that goes from one floor to another instead of a flight of stairs, it's not just me as a wheelchair user that can benefit from that. It's people with limited mobility, people who are pregnant, people who are maybe elderly. There's a lot of different stakeholders within that can benefit from positive accessibility. So, the skills that I have here could easily transfer over to something else as well in a different industry. So, there's a lot of different areas that if you get good at supporting disability access and accessibility, yes, in football, and that's what I do, and that will certainly help the sport and football sector, but those skills are transferrable across various industries and you could make a real difference for someone that you've never even met.