Ben Lampert props up an iPad on a table in a Griffin Park lounge and loads FaceTime. At the other end of the call is a British sign language (BSL) interpreter who enables me to interview Lampert, born profoundly deaf, about his work as the only deaf full-time football coach in Britain.

Lampert’s primary role is at Brentford FC Community Trust but he also took a job as the England deaf football team’s assistant coach recently. After a 15-year playing career during which he represented England and Great Britain across the world, winning gold at the Deaflympics in Melbourne, he is helping inspire the next generation before the European Championship in Crete this summer.

Lampert’s can-do attitude is clear, his mantra throughout this conversation is simply: “Why not?” In the same way that he speaks so optimistically about Brentford’s chances of lifting the Championship trophy next season, he shares the positivity when asked whether there could be a deaf professional footballer in Britain any time soon.

“I can’t see why it can’t happen, but only if the clubs are deaf aware,” he says. “They have to know about the communication. A professional deaf player would be a huge statement for the deaf community. There are deaf players out there but they just need the opportunities. The problem is that people get judged. They think you can’t do it and they tend to be a bit patronising. We need to take that away and judge people on their skills and ability rather than their deafness. It is similar to foreign managers in the Premier League who cannot speak English. They have to use an interpreter to translate and it would be the same for a deaf person. If you speak Spanish, you might need an interpreter and it would be the same for deaf people. It should be possible. That is my big dream.”

Lampert describes how he overcame barriers to access sport as a child and bemoans the absence of visible role models – “who are deaf people looking up to?” – but through his pioneering work the 33‑year‑old has inadvertently become one in this west London community. Lampert is particularly grateful to the former Great Britain manager Philip Gardner and to Chris McGinn, a former Arsenal coach who worked with a baby-faced Cesc Fàbregas and is now with the Real Madrid foundation, for their advice. As a coach, Lampert has applied for the Uefa A licence course and one day hopes to be on the coaching staff at a professional club. “That is definitely my ultimate aim. I would like to be able to work my way up.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ben Lampert coaching a fitness session. Photograph: Jim Fenwick/Brentford FC

For now Lampert, whose role at Brentford is supported by The City Bridge Trust, an organisation that aims to reduce inequality and disadvantage in London, coaches deaf and hearing children, often together, flying the flag for the trust, where each member of staff has been trained in basic BSL. “My biggest challenge is trying to get the hearing and the deaf people to work together. I think the first time the children are always looking at the interpreter but they get used to that translation process. In the future they will speak French, German and many different languages. They learn how to adapt to them and it is just the same with sign language. The children are fantastic; they tap me to get my attention and they are all so open to it. It was very stiff when I first started – I didn’t know how to work with them and likewise them with me – but that slowly has come together.”

There have been a few “pinch yourself” moments for Lampert, none more so than when he carried the Olympic torch through Harrow on the Hill in July 2012, the leg before Gordon Banks took over the baton in Brent. Having grown up near Wembley, it was an unforgettable occasion. Then there was the time that Ian Holloway, who has three deaf children, invited him to training at QPR.

“It is very rare to get those sort of opportunities. I was involved for four weeks with the first team, the youth side, and that really helped my confidence. He [Holloway] is such a confident person, really straightforward and open-minded. And because he has those children himself, it was so great and easy to communicate.”

Another landmark moment arrived after Brentford’s 3-0 win over QPR this month. “It was the first time I had met the manager, Thomas Frank, and I taught him a little bit of sign language – his name and things like that. He had an interpreter with him for the post-match interview and it was the first time in my life I had seen that happen. It was really amazing. It was on television and normally I just sort of ignore what’s going on with those interviews but to have the interpreter there was amazing.”

Lampert’s father, Robert, worked in Brentford’s financial department for three decades but his son, despite regularly going to home games from the age of 10, never envisaged working at the club. “I thought if I ever did, I’d be in one of the burger vans or something, so you never know what is going to happen,” he says, laughing.

These days he is focused on helping England to success, alongside the head coach Ryan Lewis, formerly a youth coach at Blackpool. When it is put to Lampert that a deaf managerial double act could take over at a professional club, his face lights up. “You never know. There is nothing to stop it from happening.” As Lampert poignantly states: “Deaf people can do anything – they just can’t hear.”