Dundee doctor’s chance encounter with amputee footballers on Africa beach inspires fundraising campaign

A chance encounter on an African beach has inspired a fundraising campaign for one of the world’s bravest football clubs.

Last month, we told how Keith Thomson, a retired anaesthetist, was a VIP guest at a special wedding in Sierra Leone. He had helped save the lives of expectant mother Catherine Conteh and her unborn daughter Regina 27 years ago and, before lockdown, returned to Africa to see Regina marry.

While there, however, he came across the Freetown Amputee Football Club training on Lumley Beach in Freetown, the country’s capital. The players are among the country’s estimated 1,600 amputees, who lost limbs in the civil war that raged through the 1990s.

When Keith, originally from Dundee, learned the coronavirus crisis was making it difficult for the team and their families to buy food, he set up a fundraising page to buy every player two bags of rice each.

© Chris Bamber / Atlas Images

He explained: “After meeting the team, I sent them a little money for new football boots and other equipment. But the problem in lockdown is earning money to buy food has become very difficult. They live hand-to-mouth, so what they earn during the day is what they eat. They usually survive through small trading on the streets or by begging, which can’t happen during lockdown.

“I decided to fundraise to buy each player – 78 in total – two 25kg bags of rice, which would provide food for them and their families for two months. A 50kg bag of rice costs £27.”

Most of the football club’s players lost limbs as young children during the 1999 invasion of Sierra Leone by the Revolutionary United Front rebel army, whose members used machetes to inflict terrible violence. Outfield players are single-leg amputees, while goalkeepers are single-arm amputees.

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