Money Raised Will Fund ITC Disability Teams
Down’s Syndrome football participant Lauren Baseley was drawn out to be one of the mascots for Shrewsbury Town’s FA Cup clash with Manchester United on Monday.
The six-year-old is a regular at the weekly Down’s Syndrome Football sessions which take place on Tuesday’s from 5-6pm at Shrewsbury Sports Village.
Harry Cartwright, 11, is also one of the mascots for the game following an eBay auction, with the money from the winning bid going towards our disability programmes.
Shrewsbury Town in the Community manager Jamie Edwards said: “The mascot place that we auctioned off through our eBay account will go towards our disabled programmes such as our Down’s Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy teams and hopefully, soon, our Powerchair team.
“They cost between £4,500 - £5000-a-year to run, £1000 of which we get back from subscriptions off the participants. We run those at a loss because we feel there is a need within the community for those 35-40 children and young adults to play football and to represent Shrewsbury Town.
“Nobody else is doing that in Shropshire so if we don’t do it then those people will have to either travel outside of Shropshire or worse than that, not even get the opportunity to play football.
“Hopefully the Mascot place will fund one of these disabilities for the year.
“The second mascot place we obtained from the Club was raffled off to one of our disabled players.
“There’s no money involved, they’ve had it for free. That is something that is the chance of a lifetime for one of our disabled participants to walk out onto the pitch with Shrewsbury Town players against Manchester United.
“There’s not many opportunities for a disabled child to do that and we’ve given that out at our own cost.
“We’ve also got some tickets we’ve given away on our soccer schools.”
Shrewsbury Town manager Micky Mellon also kindly donated two tickets for the manager's matchday experience with the winning bid split equally between local charities Hope House Children's Hospice and Severn Hospice.
Jamie said: “Micky Mellon has donated his two tickets and he wants that to go to Hope House and Severn Hospice so the money raised will be used to supply Severn Hospice and Hope house with either toys for children or something else that they require.
“It’s all about ensuring that the club and community share special moments like these.”
Micky said: "I've been very lucky to be on the inside and involved with the two places, and to be able to give them any kind of help that we can and make things better for the people that are there, then we'll continue to try and do that.”
For more information on Shrewsbury Town in the Community’s disability programmes, please call 01743 289177 or email community@shrewsburytown.co.uk.