Juliet England: Meet Britain’s only full-time deaf football coach

Benjamin Lampert enjoyed a football playing career that lasted 15 years before he went into coaching.

The 34-year-old now works with Brentford FC Community Sports Trust, and this summer helped train England’s players ahead of this June’s European deaf football championships in Crete, in which the national team made the quarter-finals, and Ukraine emerged victorious.

He says: “I’m grateful to the England Deaf manager Dean Humphrey for his trust in me and other coaches in working with him in Crete. It was my first  time coaching the England Deaf team, and a big dream come true. Dean wanted to give coaching opportunities for young deaf people for the future.”

No other professional football coach in the land is deaf, as Lampert has been, profoundly, since birth. (He has a bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.)

His role at Brentford is supported by The City Bridge Trust, which works to lessen disadvantage and inequality across London. Each member of staff at the Trust has basic BSL training, and Lampert often coaches deaf and hearing children together.

He’s ideally suited to the role of trainer, having been an international player himself on the national deaf side from 2003 to 2017. During this time, he represented his country all over the world, notably in the 2005 summer Deaflympics in Melbourne.

And he bore the Olympic torch through Harrow-on-the-Hill in the summer of 2012 and the London Olympics.

His big dream now is to see the UK’s first professional deaf footballer, and his work has arguably blazed a trail for this to happen.

Lampert, whose wife is expecting their second child, said in a previous interview that he was optimistic that it would happen, as long as the clubs themselves were deaf aware.

He added: “It would be a huge statement for our community. There are the players there, but they just need the opportunities. The problem is people get judged, on their inability to hear rather than their talents.

“All a professional deaf player would need would be an interpreter, same as if they spoke a foreign language. So it should be possible and I feel very possible.”

A brother to two younger hearing twin sisters, Lampert is the only deaf member of his family. He grew up in Wembley but now lives in Harrow-on-the-Hill.

Football-crazy from an early age, he cites his father Robert as his main influence on his love of the game. (Lampert senior worked in the finance department at Brentford FC for some 30 years.)

He admits there could have been more deaf sporting role models to look up to when he was growing up. And despite attending regular home games from a very young age, Lampert never dreamed he himself would ever work for the club.

However, both former Great Britain manager Philip Gardner and former Arsenal coach Chris McGinn were generous with their support and advice.

“But Dad was my main influence, and encouraged me to get involved. It’s his favourite sport, and he would always love to watch matches. I learned a lot from him, and became hooked myself from the age of six.”

Education was a mixed experience for Lampert, who attended primary and secondary schools in Kingsbury, Wembley, where he had additional support.

He says: “I enjoyed my experience in primary but really struggled in secondary school.”

It was only in his teenage years that Lampert really entered the deaf world. In 2003, GB Deaf football team’s then assistant manager Dean Humphrey asked the teenager to trial for the side after spotting him play.

“I played for the GB Deaf football team for more than 15 years, and played in competitions like the European championships and world deaf football games as well as the Deaflympics.”

Lampert is also a former player with the semi-professional Harrow borough reserve team.

“I did that for two years but never got asked to play in the first team and never received any money from the club. It was challenging and the standard was very high, so I learnt a lot. But I felt unhappy about the lack of good communication, so I left and then spent more than 15 years with Fulham Deaf football club.”

It’s hardly surprising that Lampert considers the beautiful game such an integral part of his life.

“It’s not just the sport as it’s played on the pitch, but what it’s done for me off-pitch too. When I go abroad, I can see the real world out there thanks to football, see real people, and experience a different environment and culture. It’s helped me to adapt my behaviour in good way.

“It’s a game that gives so many opportunities for success, whether you’re playing or coaching.”

That doesn’t mean that everything has been easy, or that Lampert hasn’t experienced prejudice and challenges along the way, both on the pitch and off it.

“Once I took a group of deaf kids to Chessington World of Adventures. A security officer wouldn’t let me and the children on the ride for ‘health reasons’. That was horrible.

“When I played for the Fulham deaf side, we were involved in a league with some hearing teams. A few of the hearing players did make fun of our deafness. Not even with the words they used, sometimes, but just their body language.”

He also believes more should be done to increase deaf awareness among footballing referees.

“A hearing fan who supported our deaf team heard a lot of swearing from the other side, a non-deaf team. They didn’t get booked with a yellow or red card. But when any of the Fulham Deaf players swore, they got booked straight away.

“I guess all you can do is be patient and just get on with it.”

And, with his ‘Why not?’ upbeat attitude, ‘just getting on with it’ is exactly what Lampert intends to continue doing.

His other dream is to be a coach for a professional club. It’s not hard to imagine it becoming reality.

Juliet England is a freelance writer with a hearing loss