Table 3

Subthemes, codes and exemplary quotes on the theme “Why am I concussed?”

SubthemeCodeExemplary quotes
The game It is a contact sport “I think head injuries are more common in blind football than in sighted football because there’s a lot more battling and a lot more close contact.”
“I’m not going to lie. Blind football is contact.”
“I guess just the way the game is played. You’ve got a relatively small pitch, and the kind of number of players per square metre on that pitch is higher compared to eleven-a-side football, so I think because of, you know, there’s a lot of close contacts, and obviously, the vision impairment doesn’t help in that regard, but I think yeah, just, in general, you’ve got a lot of close contact facing your opposition. So those kinds of head-to-head injuries are more likely just because of that.”
“Possibly a bit more so in our sport, hard to know, but you would think that the incidents of head collisions are probably higher kind of per minute played or trained than there would be in sighted footballers who had a really bad like head-to-head collisions you…I would expect it to be a bit higher.”
No high force or aerial challenges “However, on the flip side of that, we don’t go up for headers, you know, we don’t challenge for the ball in the air, and you see a lot of collisions in sighted football which are as a result of people challenging for crosses. So I think it probably evens itself out.”
“I think at the very top level. I think concussions are probably less…they are probably less likely than in sighted eleven-a-side football because you don’t have players competing for the ball in the air, and generally, when you get to the highest level, you…most players on that pitch are very, very spatially aware, and they’re well coached and well guided.”
“We don’t head the ball. I think it’s a big perception to think that we probably run into each other a lot, but you look at an average Premier League every week and look how many get hit in the face. People that commit to going to 50/50 balls going for headers and things like that, how many people do get caught on a weekly basis like across the country in even sighted football. So…and we wear the extra protection.”
“If you have two people collide (in sighted football) in that nature or collide with a goalkeeper’s elbow or something like that, then I would imagine that the ferocity of that is probably going to be higher than what we come across.”
Visual impairment “If they’re standing still and someone runs into them as a standing target, they’re probably going to get the brunt of it rather than the person who is running.”
“I think set pieces, and obviously, I do set pieces which are corners and free kicks, and now in the game, there are runners. You get runners and runners, which will run from a standing start. It sounds crazy because in normal life, would you ever let a blind person tell them to go and run as hard as they can at another blind person. Whereas in our sport, a runner off a wall, a runner off a corner is second nature to us, and I think if that person doesn’t stop, you’re literally stood there and going to get run into at full throttle from about 5 metres out.”
“I would just say obviously it’s visual impairment, not seeing where each other is, the lack of communication, and then the next thing you know, you’ve run into someone, or someone has run into you.”
“Blind people are probably going to run into each other more because they can’t see. Blind people tend to play football with their head down because they're listening to the ball, but, you know, it doesn’t necessarily need to be that way.”
Environment “I think just communication as a whole. When you’re playing in windy conditions particularly, to be honest, like if it’s torrential rain, you’d rather play in that than you would like the heavy wind because that’s a real challenge then because it just obscures a lot of the communication.”
“Collisions are more likely to happen on a windy day because they can’t hear what’s happening around them.”
“Another instance of the ball is it’s having the sight of people being able to watch the people not on the ball as well. Definitely, from one instance I can remember that happened about a month ago was we’re playing a league game, and one of the lads was sprinting to get back and no one, not the goalkeeper because they were, she, was guiding, and he ran straight into the post. Or you’ve got instances where I’ve known other people, or I’ve heard about other people running into the fences and into walls whenever it was played inside or whatever. I think they need to be watched on as well because they’re more at risk as well.”
Experience dependent “The issues when you come further down the pyramid there is experience of coaches, the experience of volunteers and the experience level of that player and, again, understanding of the game and their body. So, again, I wouldn’t say it’s the actual impairment that would be more likely but probably the experience of the environment around them.”
“I think when you get to that top level, then everyone and each of us can sustain levels, so you don’t really get surprised by, you know, a loose ball or a player dribbling particularly fast at you or a quick change of direction.”
“Sometimes I’ve found with younger players coming through and stuff that it’s a faster-paced game than maybe what they’re expecting, and they can’t get it in in time, so that’s when you have collisions.”
“I’ve definitely seen more head injuries occur in the lower levels of blind football or lower standard competitions of blind football than I’ve seen happen at the international level.”
“The more inexperienced you are playing the game and the least confident you are with your movement, the more high risk you are. Because even if you have a collision when you are an experienced, confident player, it’s generally whilst you are moving, and you’re in a little bit more control of your movements that you tend to get less hurt than, say, if you’re somebody who is standing still and maybe they’re confused, they don’t know necessarily where they are on the pitch.”