CLARETS SPIRIT GETS CHRIS TO THE TURF

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Fans rally round Christopher, who placed advert in local paper requesting travel to home games

2022-02-24T16:40:00.000Z

CLARETS SPIRIT GETS CHRIS TO THE TURF

Fans rally round Christopher, who placed advert in local paper requesting travel to home games

2022-02-24T16:40:00.000Z

Fans rally round Christopher, who placed advert in local paper requesting travel to home games

Season ticket holder enjoys evening with Chairman and matchwinner Ben Mee

Burnley FC Chairman Alan Pace was delighted to welcome Christopher Coxhead as special guest to the Clarets thrilling 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur last night.

Christopher, who has early-stage Parkinson’s, experienced the heart-warming power of football, when he placed an advert in his local paper the Southport and Formby Champion, asking for a lift to Burnley home games. The lifelong Claret took out the advert as he was concerned his ill health would affect his ability to drive to games next season.

Highlighting the true spirit of football fans pulling together, Chris’s newspaper advert was shared online and in time had amassed thousands of retweets and comments, resulting in the season ticket holder being inundated with offers of help. Through the kindness of others, Chris has now secured transport to Burnley’s home games for the remainder of this season and next.

Upon being made aware of the story, Chairman Alan Pace invited Chris and fellow season ticket holder Ian, to be his special guests at the Tottenham game, enjoying dinner in the Chairman’s lounge, seats in the Directors Box and the opportunity to meet Captain and matchwinner Ben Mee who presented Chris with a signed shirt after the game.

“Everybody has treated me wonderfully; I’ve been so well looked after. From the Chairman and his wife, all the way down,” said Chris.

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“For Ben Mee to score and to then come and meet me afterwards to give me his shirt is amazing. I’ve watched him since he came here on loan from Manchester City over ten years ago.

“Burnley’s all about the community, I put a little advert in the paper, in my little town, and suddenly there were over 200,000 retweets. It’s gone everywhere on Facebook that I could ever think of. I’ve had people contact me, friends from Australia, Tasmania, who have seen all of this, and people I used to work with from all over, to think that just one little advert has created all this. However, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have got to come in here, meet all these lovely people and watch the match from the Directors box.

“Also, it was really brilliant to bring Ian as well, who I’ve sat next to at Turf Moor for at least five years. I don’t think I knew his name before tonight but that’s what being a Burnley fan is, you're all together.”

Burnley FC Chairman, Alan Pace said: “This story really shows the power of social media. When Chris posted his advert in the paper, some fellow fans made me very aware of the situation and by the time I even got around to getting hold of Chris he’d already received many offers of help.

“A number of fans have really stepped up to help him, they’ve reached out and said they would be willing to help him get here going forward.

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“We invited Chris to the Chairman’s Lounge for the Tottenham game to get to know him and his story. What emphasises the power of fans even more is that when we asked Chris who he wanted to bring as his guest, he wanted to bring the person who he sits next to at Turf Moor, he didn’t know his name, but he’s been sitting next to him for several years and they have a great time. He asked us if we could find that person and invite them to join him, which we did so both Chris and Ian joined us in the Chairman’s lounge for the game.

“It’s interesting, this is one of the things we said about coming here, how much we enjoy learning about how important this Club is to the community, and it’s probably over said that in football overall we see this a lot, communities rallying around their particular Club. We love that about this town, it’s one of the things that drew us here and we love seeing these kinds of stories play out in front of our eyes, and to be able to be a part of that is special.”