the only deaf professional sportsman in England

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/club/9900808/Bath-flanker-Mat-Gilbert-I-may-be-deaf-but-I-know-how-to-survive-on-the-rugby-field.html

Nice article here.

Being deaf myself 100% in one ear and over 50% it completely throws a different light onto sport.

As was discussed in a paralympic thread, the Deaf have their own sporting event, as like most sports people we are able bodied but the disability effects communication and awareness.

If you ever want to increase visual awareness and co-ordination in training get your team mates to wear earplugs, you'll also see how much hard work it is to 'see' everything that is going on and concentration levels are very fatiguing when in use to overcome a lack of hearing.

In some sports it is worse than others, especially teamsports that require you to fit in a group where most, if not all visual focus is on the ball.

You can rarely hear the ref, and none of the banter/wind-ups from the opposition, this gives you an seemingly unflappable attitude (which is sometimes ruined when in technical time-outs, you can be heard the other side of the hall explaining to your team mates, just how Poopie the opposition are and how you are going to personally crush them when you get back on court).


of course for Mat, the field is fairly evened out due to the crowd noise and everyone screaming their heads of anyway.

I don't know how he's playing these days but Matt Gilbert seemed to be a very promising No 8 when he was with the Scarlets. It was ridiculous that we left him go especially as we had lost David Lyons and Ben Morgan as well which left us with just one out and out No 8. I hadn't realised he was deaf until I saw Richie Pugh signing to him.

He can hear a little I assume? How does he get the calls right in the lineout for example.

Interesting. Ben Cohen has about 1/3rd hearing loss in each ear.

Hence the 'Shane who?' comment.

He's done a lot of work with deaf awareness in rugby.

I saw that article too - very impressive really. Very inspiring

GunsGerms - lipreading, or discussion before the lineout.

He can hear a little, I don't think he is profoundly deaf, but it really depends on which frequency's he is missing or has a loss on.

I'm amazed he wears them when he plays, any impact on the ear would be very uncomfortable.

At least with modern hearing aids they have a db cut-off, in fact his aids may have a setting which cut out most of the background noise and enhance voices closest to him. He could in theory have better hearing that other players in that respect.

I remember him being interviewed on 'The Rugby Club' a while back about it, quite an interesting watch if I remember rightly.

Link to interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7b6vORG0ew

He has hearing aids. Occasionally they fail but as he's pointed out not massively different to contacts. That's why he wears the scrum cap.

erm, I beg to differ. Depending on how they fill the ear canal (which changes shape with jaw movements) any direct impact would be risky.