Chelsea Football Foundation has held an eight-week football training course at Woking Leisure Centre for people with learning disabilities.

The course was run in conjunction with Surrey Choices.

It came about when Danielle Walters, from Surrey Choices, met Nico Manduzio from the Chelsea Foundation at a disability sports day event at the leisure centre in March last year.

“I saw this as a fantastic opportunity to get Surrey Choices to partner with the Chelsea Football Foundation,” Danielle said.

“I knew that this would be an exciting opportunity for our customers to enjoy.”

Nico returned to Woking this year with colleague Jordan Clarke and they ran the two-hour weekly sessions, which ended recently with the participant each getting a certificate and a Chelsea medal.

Danielle said: “Nico and Jordan included health and wellbeing workshops plus fun interactive games that suited all our customer’s needs.

“They worked so hard to get to know our customers and formed strong bonds with many of them. It was so nice to see how happy this was making our customers.”

During the recent incessant rain, the sessions moved indoors.

“I am so proud and happy that this was a huge success,” Danielle said.

“ I would like to thank Nico, Jordan as well as my amazing team at The Harbour Day Centre (in Milford, near Godalming) who had supported me throughout this amazing project.”

The participants were full of praise for the sessions, with Shaun saying “Shaun won” at the end of each one.

Kerrie said: “I love It" and Karen added: “I like doing it and it's good exercise”.

“Our customers felt so proud of receiving the certificates and medals. The smiles on their faces made it all worthwhile,” Danielle said.

“We are now looking forward to restarting this journey again on Thursday April 18 for another action-packed programme,” she added.