This weekend and next when the third round of the men’s FA Cup and fourth round of the women’s are played, up and down the football pyramids, fans will be dreaming of walking from Wembley Park station towards the stadium with its swooping arch in May.
But not all supporters have been welcome at Wembley until now. Not because they’ve been unwanted but because the intensity of a matchday was too much for them. Now there are safe spaces in two multipurpose sensory rooms, opened in November, to better accommodate fans and their families with a range of access requirements. Wembley is one of the first venues in England to offer two sensory rooms, providing a space to be dedicated to fans of each team.
In one of the rooms the former England international Claire Rafferty flops on to a large beanbag below a tube of liquid and light in the darkened space that sits in the back of a hospitality box. Fans can watch the game from behind the box’s glass or step out into seats provided.
Rafferty is there to promote these new facilities at Wembley, equipped with interactive walls, areas with different textures, low lighting and sounds. She is doing so not just because she fully understands the impact of these spaces. In October 2022 Rafferty spoke about her struggles with bulimia and binge eating as well as a recent diagnosis of ADHD. Her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder manifests itself in many ways and one of the effects is that, since hanging up her boots, she struggles with the matchday environment.
“I often leave early,” the former West Ham, Chelsea and Millwall full-back says. “I’ll often leave early from most events because I get too overwhelmed. So, having a space where I know I’m safe and welcome, I’m included, I can still enjoy what everyone else does, helps you feel normal.
“For a long time I struggled. I stopped playing football and I felt like a weirdo, like I didn’t fit in. That’s why these rooms are so important, and this means a lot to me personally because, ultimately, I don’t want anyone to feel how I do or did.”
The sensory impact of attending a match starts long before the event begins. “There’s so much excitement before you even arrive,” Rafferty says. “You have that heightened emotion already. Then you’re on the train, you’re even more heightened, then you walk to the stadium, it’s busy, it’s loud, it’s bright lights, then you have to queue to get in. Having a space to instantly disconnect from that and calm yourself down is invaluable.
“For me, I get heightened hearing and I get emotional, teary. That’s not something I want to be doing somewhere where you should be happy. It doesn’t mean that it’s not a great experience, but it can reach a limit, a point where it becomes uncomfortable. So, coming in, calming down and then being able to recharge and go again and enjoy the occasion really matters. It’s an intense amount of time when you have a lot of people in one place.”
Rafferty’s ADHD diagnosis has had a huge impact. “It’s given me my self-confidence back,” she says. “I was very insecure, very visually fidgety, very conscious of how I was. If I was heightened, for example, I wouldn’t want to go to something. How do I explain that?
“The biggest education piece has been me going: ‘Oh, wait a minute, that’s me, but that bit there is because I’m heightened, so don’t catastrophise it.’ I think that’s why I struggled so much when I stopped playing football. I had an absolute breakdown when the sport was taken away, which was the outlet.
“The environment is so controlled. I didn’t have a choice to be anything other than what I was told to be, which I enjoyed and I thrived in. I only realised something wasn’t properly right when that structure was taken away … I went off the walls.”
The diagnosis was reassuring, she says: “You go: ‘Oh, that’s what it is.’ For so long I thought: ‘Well, why can’t I do this?’ About a whole load of things. ‘Why am I not able to do this? Everyone else can.’ And then you find out there’s a reason why and that it’s OK.
“You spend your life working harder to try to get to the same level as the people around you. That can affect you in later life. It can give you a complex and insecurities. You feel like you’re never good enough.”
Is she happier now? “So much happier. I was in a really bad place, and I couldn’t understand why. Why am I not achieving what I wanted? While I was playing, I had positioned myself for the next step, I wanted to do so many things, and then I just crumbled. I’m still rebuilding, because during that time you become untrustworthy, you can’t manage your time, you’re late to things, you don’t turn up. You’ve got to rebuild a lot of trust. But in your mind you’re always insecure and you’re never good enough. It’s about acknowledging that, with therapy as well, talking through things, knowing that a lot of this is in your own head.”
