A great match – feel free to print a flyer out and pin it up on your local noticeboard!

The Walsall Wood FC season may be over, but you can get your fix of great football today (May 3rd 2015) at Oak Park, Walsall Wood where there’s a great charity football match taking place, when Shire Oak Saints vets (all stars!) face the Select Windows XI.

Pete Smith, the organiser, wrote to me about this great charity event:

Bob,

I’m just e-mailing you to see if you could give our Charity Football Match a mention on your blog.

The match will take place at Walsall Wood FC this coming Sunday, 3rd May 2015 – kickoff is at 2:30pm.

The game will be between Shire Oak Saints All-Stars v Select Windows XI.

Entry is £2 for adults, and under 12s are free.

All funds raised will be going to Ataxia UK.

I previously ran an Under 9s team within Shire Oaks Saints JFC, and one of the players from the team (Bradley Barratt) has recently been diagnosed with Friedriechts Ataxia. This is a degenerative nerve disorder for which there is no known cure. Although there is medication to slow down the progression of the disorder, it is likely that when Bradley reaches adulthood he will be confined to a wheelchair and reliant on others to care for him.

Select Windows have generously offered to sponsor the game, and Walsall Wood have kindly allowed us the use of the facilities again.

Fingers crossed Bradley will be there to kick the game off with his dad Clynt, who will be playing for the All-Stars. Food will be available; the bar and clubhouse at Walsall Wood FC will be open; there will be a bouncy castle for the kids; half-time entertainment; and a raffle.

Last years charity event (Shire Oak Saints All-Stars v Shire Oak Saints U18s, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust and Stephen Sutton) was a great success with approximately £2000 being raised.

I will forward you an electronic copy of the promotional poster. If you would be kind enough to share this with the local community on your blog that would be tremendous.

Please also take this e-mail to be an invite to our event, and (as per last year) please feel free to bring your camera for pictures for your blog.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Pete Smith
Shire Oak Saints All-Stars FC

I believe the usual suspects will be attending and hopefully, a match report with pictures and coverage will be forthcoming.

This is a great thing, for an excellent charitable cause, so please do get down there and support it if you can – it’ll be great fun.