Sam Gough prepares to lead England’s blind football team at European Championship

Sam Gough is preparing to captain England’s women’s blind football team at the European Championship in Istanbul, where the Para Lionesses will seek to build on a run to last year’s world final. England’s Football Association has named the 23-year-old in its nine-player squad for the tournament, scheduled for 3–7 October. Gough told the Guardian that the world championship performance has given the team confidence, although she described the trip to Turkey as nerve-racking.

The championship is the next stage in a career Gough once feared she could not have. As her sight declined at school, she says she was removed from PE and described as a ‘hazard’. She later found blind football at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. She has captained England since 2022, according to the Guardian, and now approaches another European tournament with a team that has twice finished runner-up at major championships.

From school PE to England captain

Gough, who is based in Edinburgh, has cerebral visual impairment and competes in the B1 blind classification. In a 2023 interview with Sports Gazette, she said her sight impairment worsened in 2019. She recalled offering her school adapted equipment, including a ball with a bell, but said it was not used. Her account of exclusion and bullying is her own recollection; the published interviews do not include a response from the school.

She had played several sports when she was younger. But as football became harder to access, she travelled from Scotland to the college in Hereford to try blind football. ‘I absolutely fell in love with it,’ she told Sports Gazette. In a separate interview with VICTA Parent Network, Gough said she attended sports sessions there in 2021 and was subsequently scouted for England’s first women’s blind football squad. She said the team was formally announced in May 2022.

What the game demands

Blind football is a five-a-side game in which outfield players wear eye masks. Spectators are expected to stay quiet during play so players can hear the ball, which rattles as it moves. Players shout ‘voy’ before a tackle. Gough told the Guardian that listening and balance are central to playing; striking the ball can also leave her big toe sore because of its internal metal plates.

Away from matches, Gough says her guide dog Helga has changed how she gets to training. Since they were partnered last year, she has been able to travel to camps independently rather than relying on her parents for lifts, she told the Guardian. She described the change as liberating and recalled that one of her first independent errands with Helga was a trip to buy milk.

A title still to win

The FA lists Austria, Poland, Türkiye and a Neutral Para Team alongside England in the Istanbul tournament. It announced its squad on 21 September, with Gough among the nine players selected. The announcement establishes the tournament dates and entrants, but gives no basis for predicting individual results.

England finished second to Germany at the first women’s European championship in Pescara in 2022, according to the Guardian. The team was runner-up again at the 2025 World Championship in India, losing the final to Argentina after victories over Japan, Poland and India. Those results provide the backdrop to Gough’s expectations for Istanbul, rather than a guarantee of another final.

‘Our performance at the World Champs in India just really gave us the confidence we needed,’ Gough told the Guardian. She said England would approach each match confident in the squad’s ability and focused on supporting one another. She also acknowledged that other teams would be strong. The European Championship had not begun when she spoke, and its outcome remains open.

Beyond the tournament

Gough has used her position to introduce others to blind football. The Guardian reported that she has taught schoolchildren and given demonstrations to Brazilian footballers Kaká and Cafu, as well as members of Sarina Wiegman’s England squad. She received an MBE in June 2026 for services to sport and the visually impaired community, the paper reported.

In her Sports Gazette interview, Gough said visits to schools in Scotland were a way to promote visually impaired sport and show young blind athletes that they could take part. Her experience of being excluded from PE remains part of that message. For now, the immediate test is on the pitch in Istanbul; the Guardian reports that the next women’s blind football World Championship is scheduled for October 2027 in São Paulo, Brazil.