Mackenzie Arnold, goalkeeper for West Ham Women and for the Australian national team, has hearing loss severe enough for her to need to use hearing aids in day-to-day life.
Could a deaf person play at a professional level?
- Thread starter horsechoker
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I've never heard of anything like this before!
There was an MMA fighter who carved out a good career including a good few fights in the UFC who was deaf
pretty incredible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Hamill
pretty incredible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Hamill
It's a team sport. And communication is important in any team sport.
Maarten Stekelenburg has a hearing loss in one ear.
Not the same obviously, but I imagine it must be difficult, and he had a pretty good career
Not the same obviously, but I imagine it must be difficult, and he had a pretty good career
I believe it would be possible but like any player they'd have some weaknesses, and most likely they'd have to be outstanding in almost everything other than communication. So they'd have to be better than someone who isnt deaf
There was a Dutch striker called Jack Castelijns who was deaf who played in the third tier in Denmark and ended up topscorer for his club, Vanløse IF, for a season or two. Good striker and would probably have made more of it if not for his impairment. Obviously an interpreter followed him around the club.
That's just below professional level unless you're in a big, ambitious club.
That's just below professional level unless you're in a big, ambitious club.
Looks like your question has fallen on deaf ears
48 replies says otherwise
Did he ever do the "I can't hear you" celebration?
well done, im deaf
That's because deaf ears don't affect people's ability to read and type.
Didn't hearing loss affect the balance and coordination of a person? If so it would be a huge handicap for anyone like that to make it into the professional level.
I'm surprised Rams hasn't made a parody thread "could a dead person play at a professional level?"
Joe Allens brother is deaf and played for Wales deaf side. By all accounts he was as good , if not better than Joe was when they were younger.
Not sure about the all-time greats. Stefan Markolf played in the 2nd Bundesliga for Mainz, he wore special hearing aids. And from the British football there were Billy Nesbitt (Burnley 1912-23); James M(a)cLean (Cardiff City 1923-26); Raymond Drake (Stockport County 1953-57).
Nesbitt did won both the FA Cup and the First Division title with Burnley.
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Of course. It would be tough but if you are good enough so there is no problem in that way. It is not like communication is best attribute players have. Lot of them are pretty poor in that area.
Interesting, considering that I'd imagine 10 percent of the population from the 20 to 30 range suffer from some form of hearing disability I thought there'd be more cases.Not sure about the all-time greats. Stefan Markolf played in the 2nd Bundesliga for Mainz, he wore special hearing aids. And from the British football there were Billy Nesbitt (Burnley 1912-23); James M(a)cLean (Cardiff City 1923-26); Raymond Drake (Stockport County 1953-57).
Nesbitt did won both the FA Cup and the First Division title with Burnley.
From what I've gathered by reading the article on the matter* it seems that, at least in Britain, deaf football was very prominent since the late XIXth century (weirdly enough, Glasgow Deaf and Dumb Football Club was founded earlier than both Rangers & Celtic!). So most deaf people who were interested in football participated in it. Plus, I'd imagine that there was probably a lot of prejudice against deaf players in professional football for... and hearing aids were far from reliable in match conditions if there were even any in the first place (I don't think that Nesbitt or MacLean used ones).
The article was written in 1999 and it said that lately deaf football league had been slowly dying out since deaf football teams prefer to compete in hearing leagues. I'd imagine that we'll see more deaf or partially deaf players relatively soon.
* Playing to the flag: a history of deaf football and deaf footballers in Britain by M Atherton, D Russell, G Turner
- DOI: 10.1080/17460269909445807
With the hard work and talent, you’d have an amazing player, capable of reaching the top. You’d make up for the loss of hearing by being more aware of your surroundings. I’ve watched footballers who aren’t deaf, play with zero awareness, head down, missing the obvious pass, unable to see the full picture… I’d rather take a player with all the awareness, no matter what he can hear.
Every game can feel like a game behind closed doors! Okay not quite, but you won’t hear abuse and I’m sure psychologically that would be an advantage over those who do.
All in all - my answer is yes.
Every game can feel like a game behind closed doors! Okay not quite, but you won’t hear abuse and I’m sure psychologically that would be an advantage over those who do.
All in all - my answer is yes.
They'd get really confused when other players cover their mouths
Nunez gets paid a lot considering he’s blind
What about a blind person? It’d probably be even harder as you couldn’t even see yourself playing, but surely there must have been blind players. I know that Edgar Davids famously played with glasses.
Jermaine Deafoe had no problem
How did this manifest? Because my initial answer was that striker might be the only position where it wouldn't be as big a problem, even if it would cause the occasional unseen pass and he'd have nobody to advise him on how to set up defensively, but a lot of strikers seem to decide which way to force the CBs anyways (and in some games you just see the striker sit on the CB who is better on the ball and maybe less quick, like when Barca played this season I saw the opposing manager often just have their striker mark Cubarsi and leave Araujo open since Cubarsi is a much, much better passer and also more likely to lose a duel than Araujo).
We all know if you lack one sense all your other senses become super human, so I think they’d eventually become the best player that ever lived , I saw it in a movie once or twice
Id love to be able to answer this properly, but I wasn’t a good enough player to know exactly what held him back, and it’s too long ago for me to remember everything I knew back then.
What I do know is that he was completely deaf. So he couldn’t hear a defender chasing behind him, or the call of a fellow attacker shouting wide of him, or the tens of other small things that add up to the difference between a good footballer and a pro.
I just know if I put the ball in front of him, anywhere close to the box, he buried it 9 times out of 10.
Hard to know. We've seen many examples of players down the years who move to clubs without a single word of English.
Off the pitch, obviously not much of a problem getting someone to translate into sign. On the pitch, how much communication happens in the heat of it?
Would be some amusing situations like not hearing the wistle etc.. but in all seriousness I think they could yeah.
Would Fergie's hairdryer work on a deaf player? Was it more about the noise or did the heat and airflow play a significant part?
Two frogs in a bucket of milk. A chorus of onlooking frogs tells them they'll drown. One does indeed drown, while the other leaps and leaps until he's out. The second frog was deaf, and couldn't hear the crowd.
Most top players try to tune out noise completely. I think there are a fair few who claim not to hear anything the second a match starts. They focus of visual cues and spacial feeling, because your ears are pretty much useless anyway once there's 70k people screaming at you.
Most top players try to tune out noise completely. I think there are a fair few who claim not to hear anything the second a match starts. They focus of visual cues and spacial feeling, because your ears are pretty much useless anyway once there's 70k people screaming at you.
This is exactly where my mind went after reading that. Weird.
Great sadists think alike!
Impressive, though never heard of themNot sure about the all-time greats. Stefan Markolf played in the 2nd Bundesliga for Mainz, he wore special hearing aids. And from the British football there were Billy Nesbitt (Burnley 1912-23); James M(a)cLean (Cardiff City 1923-26); Raymond Drake (Stockport County 1953-57).
Nesbitt did won both the FA Cup and the First Division title with Burnley.