COACH KEN McDONALD

Ken McDonald has been involved in the game for 48 years as a player or coach. Growing up in England he played for all the top amateur teams, also training with several professional teams at youth level. Over the years he has won over 200 medals and trophies from League championships and cup competitions with his English teams.

He played semi-pro for Bloxwich Town and Blakenall FC for many years, eventually becoming Player/Coach to both teams. It was an extremely demanding job at this level, but still managed to win plenty of League championships etc.

Ken came to the United States around 10 years ago. He worked as a coach for two Atlanta, GA teams: the Peachtree Lazers and Griffin Futbol Club. He worked with both boys and girls teams at all ages achieving wins in many top tournaments and eventually became DOC of Griffin FC.

Around this time the position of assistant coach to the US Women's Deaf Soccer team was offered. This team was ranked 7th in the world when Ken joined them. Within two years he had turned them into the best team in the world, winning the Gold medal at the Deaflympic's in Australia 2005. His success with the women's team lead to being offered the position of Head Coach to the Men's team, who had finished a disappointing 9th place in Australia.

Ken relocated to Pensacola and was now working for PFC. He took the U16 Girls and the U14 Boys teams to the last sixteen of the State Cup. Only injuries to key players stopped them going all the way.

In summer 2008 Coach Ken took the Men's Deaf team to England to take on the current World and Olympic Champions Great Britain, who had won every game but one in the last 6 years. The US team went there and gained a 0-0 draw and shocked the Great Britain team and supporters by the quality of our game. Everyone agreed we deserved to win the game. This was obviously a great satisfaction to us all and gave the guys a belief they could do well at this summer Deaf Soccer World Cup in Greece.

Ken has worked with various Club soccer teams in the Pensacola area and has just completed a season with Mobile Soccer Club and Bayside Soccer Club in Gulf Breeze, Florida.

Links:

US Deaf Soccer

Mobile Soccer Club