Helga has spotted a pigeon just outside the changing rooms at Poltonhall Sports Complex in Bonnyrigg and it suddenly becomes clear from her ears, tongue and tail that she would very much like to chase it. But not today. She is a good girl, she resists the exciting temptation, and stays true to her task. Helga, a three-year-old black labrador, is a guide dog, partnered with the England women’s blind football captain, Sam Gough, and the duo have important work to do.
Gough is preparing for the 2026 IBSA Women’s Blind Football European Championship, which gets under way in Istanbul on Saturday, full of confidence in her everyday life since partnering with Helga last year, a moment she says has been liberating.
“It was as if I was a bird trapped in a cage and finally was able to fly and spread my wings,” Gough, 23, says of Helga, as she sits down for an exclusive interview with Moving the Goalposts, two days after claiming second place in the Home International Rowing Beach Sprints in her other international sporting career, rowing for Scotland. “As I train full-time in two sports, my training load is a lot and I used to have to rely on my parents to drive me up and down the country. Helga’s changed that because I can get to camps by myself.
“Helga came into my life at the right time when I really needed her most. I remember finding out about her, sitting in the nail salon getting my nails done and I got a phone call. I just remember crying, I was so emotional. You wait for so long for this life-changing moment.
“Growing up, I was always setting myself goals, [such as] ‘what age will I be able to go independently to the shops and get milk?’ And I gave myself until 18 to do it. When I got to 18, I wasn’t able to. Then when I got Helga, one of the first things I did was go down to the local shops and get a pint of milk. ‘Finally’, I was able to do something so simple, and it really just sunk in how valuable it is, having a guide dog in my life.”
Gough, who is based in Edinburgh, has a condition called cerebral vision impairment, caused by damage to the connecting pathways between her eyes and her brain when she was born. Her sight gradually declined through her childhood and she now competes as a para athlete in the B1 blind classification; Helga is a regular in the dugout as she trains. A Scot, she is allowed to compete for England purely because Scotland does not have a women’s blind football team. Nor do Wales, so the English team currently include players from across Britain.
England’s captain since 2022, Gough is one of the best strikers in the world. Blind football is a five-a-side game, with all four outfield players wearing eye masks and spectators having to remain silent during play. Players must shout “voy” before tackling and metal plates inside the ball create a rattling sound to help players locate it. That makes the ball heavy – “when you’re striking a ball, your big toe can get quite sore. My toenail is no longer existent because you’re hitting off a metal plate all the time!” Gough says, before explaining: “Balance is very, very, very important. You’re playing a game just through hearing and battling so your stability has to be really, really strong to your core.”
England’s team, known as the Para Lionesses, will be joined in Turkey at the upcoming European Championship by teams from Austria and Poland, as well as the host nation and a neutral para team. In the inaugural women’s edition of the championship, which was held in Pescara on Italy’s Adriatic coast four years ago, England were the runners-up, to Germany. Gough’s team also finished second at the 2025 World Championship in India, losing to Argentina in the final after victories over Japan, Poland and India. This bid for a European title comes a year ahead of the next World Championship, in October 2027, in São Paulo, Brazil.
Gough says travelling to Turkey this week for the Euros is “nerve-racking” but adds: “Our performance at the World Champs in India just really gave us the confidence we needed. There are a couple of teams that are strong and we’re just going to go into each game really having confidence in our ability as a squad and supporting each other for it.”
Gough had always had a passion for football as a child but initially found herself taken out of PE lessons and bullied at school, recalling: “I really wanted to be involved but, as I lost more and more of my vision, I was told I wasn’t going to be able to participate in sport. I was actually removed from PE due to being a ‘hazard’. I thought that that dream would never really come to fruition, until I went to the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. There, I tried blind football for the first time and realised the football door would open for me.
“As I’ve grown up I’ve been able to realise that actually things weren’t acceptable and that was an exclusion in sport, where younger Sam was told that she couldn’t take part. It’s why I’m such a big advocate now for sport to be inclusive and young people to have the opportunity. Young Sam went through a lot of bullying as well, so it kind of toughened me up a little bit but also was one of the worst experiences of my life.”
In June this year Gough received an MBE in the king’s birthday honours list, for her services to sport and the visually impaired community. She has taught blind football to schoolchildren and also to the Brazilian football icons Kaká and Cafu, as well as giving demonstrations to some of Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses.
In Turkey, it is her turn to shine.
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This year Postcode Lottery players are helping Guide Dogs to fund life-changing partnerships like Sam and Helga. To find out more about Guide Dogs, you can visit guidedogs.org.uk
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