A family from Golcar are on a mission to help kick racism out of football.
Huddersfield Town fans Lorna and Carl Wray will be walking from the John Smith’s Stadium to Manchester United’s Old Trafford on Friday October 22 to raise money for the charity Show Racism the Red Card.
The 27-mile trek will be an exciting experience for the couple who are determined to raise as much money as possible to then purchase books about diversity and racism and put them into nurseries and schools for free.
Lorna, 34, told Huddersfield Hub of the inspiration behind the walk and said: “We watched the Euros final with England and were obviously devastated that we didn’t win. However I knew there would be lots of backlash after the three lads missed those penalties.”
The three penalties Lorna is referring to are the spotkicks taken by Marcus Rashford, Jordan Sancho and Bukayo Saka. Due to those missed penalties, Italy won the tournament.
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In what had already been a terrible day with England fans trashing Wembley Way, those three players then received disgraceful racist abuse on social media.
England’s reputation off the pitch was in ruins whilst on the pitch Gareth Southgate and his players had done the nation proud. And this was a team which actually could identify with the public having grown up all over England with some of them from deprived backgrounds.
Lorna added: “It was hard to explain to my kids – Skyla, six, and Jackson, four – why the players were receiving abuse because of the colour of their skin. No parent should ever need to do that and it just highlighted to me the real problem we have in this country.
“What we want to do is put books into schools to educate young people about discrimination of any sort and why it is unacceptable.”
The couple have already raised an incredible £1,500 by just promoting their walk on Facebook to family and friends. However, the more money they raise the more books they can supply to schools.
Lorna added: “We’d love to supply initially 50 schools in the area with at least one book each. However if we raised enough why couldn’t we supply 100 schools and go from there?”
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Coming from a multi-cultural background Lorna and Carl could identify how hurtful the abuse was to the players.
Lorna added: “I am an Independent Usborne Partner. Usborne publishes books which I sell and I would usually make a commission. However, for this important cause I will not be making anything. I am giving it all to the charity to help them continue the great work they do.”
The couple will be wearing red on the day which is what the charity asks people to wear on their signature day which is this weekend.
You can donate to Lorna and Carl’s cause by visiting their PayPal link HERE.
