Scott Bell Fund Success

Everton Former Players’ Foundation donated a signed legends shirt to the Scott Bell Fund.

The fund helps raise money for research into Motor Neurone Disease. Fergus Dowd contacted this website to ask if Everton Former Players’ Foundation would join other Former Players Associations from Britain and Europe in sending a signed shirt to help the charity.

Over all the shirt together with other shirts from clubs around Britain and Europe raised £6,000 for the charity.

The Everton shirt contains the following names:
Tom Jones, Harry Leyland, Brian Labone, Norman Whiteside, Fred Pickering, Alan Ainscow, Tony Kay, Mike Pejic, Frank D’Arcy, Mike Lyons, Alan Whittle, Alec Farrell, George Telfer, Colin Harvey, Billy Bingham,
Dennis Stevens, Kenny Rea, Tony McNamara, Jimmy Harris, Jimmy Tansey, Dave Hickson, Gordon West, Kenny Birch, Derek Temple, Ray Wilson, Howard Kendall, Duncan McKenzie, John Bailey, Drew Brand, Graeme Sharp, Joe Royle

The fund also had a bike ride to help raise over £50,000 for Motor Neurone Disease research.

I’m just dropping you a line to confirm we have completed our cycling event and it was a great success.

The cyclist cycled circa 340 miles visiting Windsor Park Belfast, Celtic Park and Ibrox Park Glasgow, Easter Road and Tynecastle stadium in Edinburgh, Kelso and went to Stadium of Light Sunderland AFC and St. James Park Newcastle United for shirt presentations.
We achieved our goal of being at the charity match at Croft Park Blyth for 2pm on May 5th.

A couple of ex players cycled with us along the route Tom Boyd ex Celtic, Chelsea and Scotland, Derek Ferguson ex Rangers, Sunderland and Scotland, Gary Mackay ex Hearts and Scotland, Willie Hunter ex Hibs, Motherwell and Scotland.

Willie Henderson ex Rangers legend and friend of Jimmy Johnstone’s presented us with a Rangers retro shirt signed by some of the players who played in the 1972 European Cup Winners cup final including Willie himself at Ibrox Stadium.

Nicky Sharkey ex Sunderland AFC and now chairman of the FPA at Sunderland presented us with a legends shirt at The Stadium of Light Sunderland and John Anderson ex NUFC and Ireland and Mark Hannen (press office) helped with a donated legends signed Newcastle United shirt which we received from officials at the club as part of a guided tour of the Newcastle United stadium.

We also met Mrs Agnes Johnstone at the Jimmy Johnstone memorial park in Viewpark Glasgow; Jimmy ‘Jinky’ Johnstone was voted by the fans Celtic’s greatest ever player but sadly passed away from Motor Neurone Disease in 2006.

The cycle was featured on the back page of the Edinburgh Evening News on Friday 4th May and our event will be featured in a Spanish sports paper in the coming weeks with the help of the European Former Players Assoc in Barcelona.

The fund itself has raised over 50k sterling with our auction of signed football memorabilia raising close to 6k(8k Euro) sterling to date with a Robin Van Persie signed/framed shirt donated by the PFA in England yet to be auctioned off and a pair of signed Shay Given Aston Villa and Ireland football boots also.