LEE Fawcett, flies out to Beijing today to compete in the wheelchair fencing event at the Paralympic Games. In the second of a three-part series on Teesside’s Paralympic athletes, Sarah Judd discovers that fencing was not the Middlesbrough dad’s first love.
PARALYMPIC fencer Lee Fawcett has never let disability get in the way of living life to the full.
At 32, the former Brackenhoe School pupil is married with three children and has enjoyed a varied and successful sporting career.
In little more than 12 years, Lee has coached a successful young football team, been part of a multi-medal-winning wheelchair basketball team and made a switch to the new discipline of fencing.
Football-mad Lee had his eyes opened to a world of alternative sporting opportunities after an operation left him paralysed in 1992. The surgery was meant to correct a condition called scoliosis or curvature of the spine, which Lee had suffered since birth.
“The operation was to try to prevent it getting worse while I went through my growth spurt,” explained Lee.
“But during the operation, the spine swelled up and left me paralysed due to a trapped nerve. I was 15 years old and still at school. It was just a shock.”
Lee was in the old Middlesbrough General Hospital for a month, surrounded by family, including mum Anne and school friends, who helped him come to terms with the diagnosis.
“After that, they sent me to Hexham for rehabilitation,” said Lee.
“It was hard to leave my family but when I look back, it was the best thing to help me adjust to life in a wheelchair.”
Lee had always loved football and as he adapted to being back at school, it was hard to think he would never play the game again. But after facing up to life in a wheelchair, Lee found a world of sporting opportunity was just around the corner.
“I got introduced to Ian Smith from Ormesby School who showed me lots of different sports like wheelchair racing and basketball and I started training at Southlands Centre and Clairville Stadium,” said Lee. “I used to love football and thought there was nothing else. So the first thing I wanted to do was coach a team because I couldn’t play myself.”
Lee started the Grove Hill Under-12s and in five years the team won two league cups and were runners-up in the league twice. While Lee was coaching he also began playing for wheelchair basketball team Teesside Lions, based at the Southlands Centre.
There, he met friend Terry Bywater, 25. They both played for the GB Junior team and made it into Great Britain’s Paralympic team for Sydney 2000.
Lee said: “I got in as a reserve and went out to the games, although I didn’t get the chance to compete.”
Lee then suffered a health setback just before the 2004 Paralympics in Athens when he had a kidney removed.
“I suffered from constant infections and it took me a good year to get back to the level I was at just after Sydney.”
Sadly, Lee didn’t make the squad for Athens and instead trained with the English Institute of Sport in Durham.
There, he met fencing coach Laslo Jacob who tried to persuade Lee to take up the sport.
“He kept on at me for a few weeks and out of politeness I said I’d give it a try.”
Lee eventually made the decision to switch to fencing and it was a decision that paid off as, within four months, he made the Great Britain squad.
Lee now has two fencing medals to his name. The first a bronze from the Team Sabre event at the 2005 European Championships in Spain and a bronze at the World Cup in Italy in 2006 in the Individual Sabre.
And Lee is going to Beijing in a confident frame of mind.
“I think I’ve proved in this last year that, on my day, I can beat anyone in that field,” he said.
Despite his obvious drive and ambition, it is clear Lee loves nothing more than being a dad and his main priority is his family and Hemlington home.
Lee met his wife Linda when they were both students at Middlesbrough College and got chatting in the lunch hall.
“She caught my eye so I’d go and sit there with her more often,” said Lee.
When they met, Lee was in his fourth year at the college studying business and finance and Linda had just started her course in health and social care.
Linda said: “He had charm and seemed very caring with a nice personality.”
The couple were soon an item and about a year later, their first son, Liam, now 10, was born.
Lee and Linda now have another boy, four-year-old Jamie and a seven- month-old baby girl called Millie.
Lee said: “It is difficult because you are two people. You’re an athlete and then you’re the family guy. Sometimes finding the balance is hard, especially when you’re out training.”
For the moment the family are focused on watching Lee in Beijing.
Linda said: “When he went to Sydney, we were trying to see if we could see him on the sidelines.
“But with his fencing, it’s all about him and we’ll get to see him compete.”
Lee’s mum, 50, and his little sister Carly Williams, 21, both from Grove Hill, will also be rooting for him.
Lee is proud to represent Teesside as one of three Paralympic athletes from the area.
“I just hope we can bring a few medals back,” he said.
Lee Fawcett is competing in the Wheelchair Fencing event at the Beijing Paralympic Games on September 14.
I wish you all the best Lee!!! I played with Lee for a while during my time with Teesside Lions Wheelchair Basketball Team and I really enjoyed it!!! I usd to love whizzing up and down the Sports hall in Ormsby during our evening game pratice.
ReplyDeleteI also came into contact with Ian Smith through my physio at the time during school, and I remember going to Clairville Stadium to attend an atheletics day and Ian helped me into one of there sports chairs, it was great being able to wheel around the whole track, its amazing how big it actually is
Good Luck!!