1:10pm Sunday 21st March 2010
A CHARITY football match featuring former Bolton Wanderers legends is being staged to raise funds in memory of a young cancer victim.
Teenager Josh Riley and his pals will play against the former football stars at Bolton Arena on March 28 to raise money for The Willow Foundation.
Josh has organised the event in memory of his friend Jack Coleman, who died from leukaemia in January last year, aged 20.
Turton High School pupil Josh, aged 15, said: “I got on with Jack really well and he taught me how to DJ. I just wanted to do something in his memory and raise money for the charity which he supported.”
The charity — which organises special days for seriously ill young adults — was close to Jack’s heart, and shortly before he died he spoke to The Bolton News to raise awareness about it.
The Willow Foundation organised for Jack to go to London for a weekend shortly after his diagnosis, with his mother Ann, father Andrew and younger brother George, aged 15.
Jack would have been 22 on April 1, and to mark the occasion purple balloons will be released after the football match.
The team will also wear black arm bands. On the back of their shirts instead of numbers they have the letters of Jack’s name.
Former Wanderers player and The Bolton News columnist Tony Kelly is organising a team of ex-players to face Josh’s side. Jack’s brother George will be playing in the match.
George said: “It will be emotional and I am sure that Jack would have loved to have been there.”
Jack, a former Turton High School pupil, was diagnosed with leukaemia three weeks after his 18th birthday. He beat the condition twice, but in August 2008, doctors said it had returned and that there was nothing they could do.
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