Back in 1976 the Annual Disability Sport Fife Sports Festival was run over one single Saturday afternoon in March at the Fife Sports Institute. For the first part of the session activities were held in the games hall and then everybody headed through to the swimming pool for the swimming event that lasted just over an hour. Apart from an enjoyable day of physical activity the purpose of the Festival was to raise awareness of disability issues and services available to disabled people in Fife. Education and Social Work Services cooperated to organise the Festival but there was no Disability Sport Fife.
Fast forward to 2017 and the Festival is now run over three weeks. It starts with the Fife Swimming Championships which this year had 175 individual entries and was run over five hours. The Fife Badminton Championships are now held at Kirkcaldy Leisure Centre and this year entries exceeded 60 for the first time. Around the same number participated in Basketball/Netball and Tug of War and the Football/Unihoc 5s and 6s exceeded 130. Archery moved to the new venue of Queen Anne HS and during the Festival period there was also a leg of the 7s Football Series at Kirkcaldy High School. Approximately 566 participants took part in the 2017 Sports Festival in 11 sports in four venues in central and west Fife. Around 200 support personnel and volunteers were engaged over the three week period. This was by far the most successful Festival to date.
Many thanks to Fife Council for grant aid to support the Festival and to the Fife Sports and Leisure Trust for the provision of facilities as part of the Service Level agreement. Many thanks in particular to the young sports leaders from Kirkcaldy High School who make such a significant contribution as Festival officials. DSF members are already asking about dates for 2018 for the longest running event in the DSF calendar.
Richard Brickley MBE – President Disability Sport Fife