One-legged heroes of the soccer field

Former soldiers who lost limbs while fighting Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists have formed a soccer team in Konya and are learning to restore their self-confidence by playing soccer with the help of crutches, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Neşet Demirbağ, president of the MEDAT Tekmeram Amputee Soccer Team, spoke to the agency and said that they established the team four months ago and have 14 players, most of whom are "Southeast veterans."

Demirbağ noted that they were the eighth soccer team made up of amputee players in Turkey, and that founding such teams was encouraged in other cities. A soccer league of amputee teams will be established when the number of teams reaches 12, he noted.

The team trains three times a week, he said: "These soldiers, whom Turkey takes pride in, have reached the spiritual height of being a war veteran, which is highly praised in Islam. The teams have been established to protect our veterans from bad habits and to help them forget about their disability by doing sports, and most importantly to boost their morale." They have already made important progress in their rehabilitation, Demirbağ stressed. By engaging in such an activity, they adopted a new purpose. Demirbağ also said that garrison commander, Lt. Gen. Uğur Uzal, has been helping them in every way possible since the team was established. "We also hope for help from the businessmen and people in Konya. It's a duty for all of us to win back these people, who risked their lives for this country and everyone living in this country."

They never played before

Hakan Boran, the trainer of the team and himself a veteran, said that the players had never played soccer before, and ironically started playing after losing their limbs. But in spite of that, they made a great headway in a short time, Boran noted. "We naturally had serious problems at the inception, but our friends, who had difficulty even walking with their prosthetic legs at the beginning, have learned to run with crutches," he added. Before the team was established, the players stayed at home doing little, unwilling to go out for fear of attracting strange looks. But playing soccer has helped them restore their faith in that they could do something, he said, and that they were now happy knowing that they were indeed achieving something.

Boran said the Amputee Soccer World Cup will be held in Antalya in November and seven countries will take part. He said that four players from his team were named to the national team during the selection game played in Trabzon.

‘We want to change certain things’

Team member Ramazan Çeliker received a disabling wound in his left leg when they were ambushed by a group of PKK terrorists in the Van district of Geva? in 1994. His leg was later amputated. Çeliker said that he did not want to remember that fateful moment of his life, but forgetting was impossible.

"What I had to live through after becoming a permanently disabled person is extremely stressful. I'm deeply disturbed by people's stares. Lest they should notice my artificial leg, I always wear a baggy tracksuit. However, we have now turned a new page in our lives through soccer. It is really difficult to play soccer like this, but we want to achieve this to change the way people see us."

History

This game began in El Salvador in the late 1970s, when many soldiers and civilians could not afford artificial legs and relied on light crutches for mobility. Eventually some of the amputees began to play soccer using their crutches and the good leg for kicking. News of the new sport spread throughout the world, and reached Europe in the mid-1980s through the influence of FIFA. Amputees who have acquired artificial legs remove them so that all amputees can compete on an equal basis with one leg and crutches. The game is played at considerable speed. To enable long kicks, able-bodied players also take part, but they can only use one leg or arm while playing, and only amputees with one arm are allowed to man the posts.