Wheelchair Tennis player and Nottingham resident Sarah Bard is nothing less than a soldier. Having fought through lifelong chronic pain and mobility problems, which peaked after an accident she suffered at age thirty, she’s cemented her position as one of our city’s most admired sportspeople. Back in 2018, LeftLion joined other local media in promoting Sarah’s story, and ‘Go-Fund-Me’ for a new wheelchair to help her travel to national tournaments. Here we pass Sarah the pen to tell her inspiring story.
I grew up in a village just outside of London. My dad was a Vicar. My childhood was singing in church and selling raffle tickets at fetes. I was born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease: a neuromuscular syndrome which wasn’t well understood back then. I was told my chronic pain was largely psychosomatic until I was 27, when a specialist with more understanding explained as well as my feet being deformed, and some nerves being trapped, many of my peripheral nerves were misfiring and interpreting all information as pain. I don’t ever remember not being in some degree of pain.
After coming to the midlands for University I settled in Nottingham after getting a job in the tribute band ’S Club Heaven’ as Hannah. The dancing was brutal on my feet, but I’m glad I did it. From a young age I’ve been able to semi-divorce my mind from the physical pain and during the time I spent on stage I just got to be the person people saw. Through my 20s I also organised gig nights in Hockley and made a few albums and LPs; Night Time Acoustics is still available on most streaming sites.
One day, I was leaving a Nottingham hotel for my thirtieth birthday party: I took the stairs and fell. I fractured my ankle but didn’t want to miss it so my cousin and uncle carried me to the venue. For the rest of the night I sat with my foot up while each of my loved ones came to see me. I felt like Birthday Santa. I went straight to QMC casualty when the party ended.
After coming home from hospital the reality of the situation took hold. I had broken my ‘good’ ankle and had no feet left to carry my weight. I suddenly found myself a wheelchair user. My hands are also affected by my disease and I wasn’t able to push myself in the wheelchair around the city. I couldn’t even push open the doors leading out of my flat. I became housebound.
My friends and family were wonderful, they helped wherever they could but I needed so much help. I found that helping me was all they had time for. I saw so many people who loved me, yet became more and more isolated and lonely. I gained about four stone in weight and became extremely depressed. Life had often been difficult but this time I couldn’t see a future for myself.
My first push forward was when I got proper Personal Care Support from Nottingham City Council. My friends became my friends again. When they stopped seeing me as needing so much help I began to stop seeing myself as helpless. I’d been told I’d never walk again but to give me a chance a surgeon in London took on a huge operation to reconstruct my foot. I had several more operations in the following years. I later got a mobility scooter and I was free of my flat.
I play for my health. Mental and physical. I can’t describe the sheer quantity of things that are better for me since I picked up a racket
About eight years ago my friend Eric suggested that we go to a Paralympic ‘come and try’ event in the Market Square and it was when I tried wheelchair tennis that things clicked. It was so difficult, but I loved it. I was invited to the beginner wheelchair tennis sessions at the Nottingham Tennis Centre on Friday nights, and later was encouraged to go to tournaments.
I successfully applied to The Dan Maskell Tennis Trust for a tennis chair of my own. These are much lighter, the wheels flare out for tight spinning turns and they don’t have breaks. As I improved and played more competitively - now in the Women’s Open category - my confidence grew, my health improved and the way that I saw my disease changed. I lost all of the weight I’d gained after my fall. One of my consultants told me I was ‘defying the textbooks’.
After winning my first national tournament at the Lee Valley Tennis centre in London, I entered my first International Futures event at Nottingham Tennis Centre. I found myself side by side with the best players in the world. I soaked it all in, asked questions, learned from them, used that knowledge to push myself forward even more, and managed to get my world ranking up to #158.
Last summer I played in a tournament at Wimbledon - it was amazing. The Play Your Way To Wimbledon competition had qualifying events around the UK where successful players got the chance to compete in the National Finals. I managed to tip my chair over twice in two days and I can attest, Wimbledon grass is lovely and soft.
I stopped singing when I fell. At first it was practical - I couldn’t leave the house. But I also didn’t want to be seen as I was now and I felt like if I found I’d lost the ability to sing, it would be confirmation that I truly had nothing left.
Years later I’ve made peace with that version of myself. My uncle and cousin play in a band and last year asked me to do a couple of songs with them. I do that now and then, and it’s fun, but I think tennis is more of an expression of my creative self.
I remain realistic, I’m not twenty years old, I have to rest more than half the time and my disease has complicating factors that affects me on and off. I take a huge amount of medication and have to wake up hours before I play so it has time to take effect. I get exhausted just because my nerves are constantly working to interpret a world they can’t understand.
Given my challenges I can’t play many tournaments in a year, so my world ranking won’t get too high. But I play for my health. Mental and physical. I play to see people I know, like and respect. And because it challenges me in every way. I can’t describe the sheer quantity of things that are better for me since I picked up a racket.
Nottingham as a city, its people, institutions and the disability provisions from Nottingham City Council have propelled me forward through all this. From the free disability travel pass I use most days, to Nottingham Tennis Centre, whose lovely management and staff try so hard to help me, to the friends and family who are always supportive when I lean on them. I genuinely wonder if I’d be doing so well if I lived in any other city. Thank you Nottingham.
Sarah Bard’s LP Night Time Acoustics is available from most streaming sites.
For more information about trying wheelchair tennis - you can be any age and don’t have to be a permanent wheelchair user - contact the Tennis Centre directly, nottinghamtcenquiries@lta.org.uk
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?