Sports Connections Foundation were lucky enough to once again make the trip down to Wembley Stadium to grant our latest Sporting Wish where we met an incredible young man and his dad.
Friday 22nd March saw England take on the Czech Republic in their first qualifying match for next years European Championship and after the excitement of last summers World Cup, the expectation to see how Gareth Southgate's side were going to get on lead to an incredible atmosphere as over 82,000 people filled up the Stadium.
Of those 82,000 plus people there was one person in particular I would like to point out, his name is Callum. Callum is a 13 year old boy who has a love for football, particularly his team Norwich City.
He has had a difficult time of late as he had an emergency operation on a brain tumour over Christmas which was followed by a gruelling 13 days of radiotherapy but he is back on his feet, being very strong and positive and handling his medication well.
Before the game Callum and Ian were chauffeur driven down to Wembley where they met up with our SCF Representatives Gareth and Arvey at the Hilton Hotel where they enjoyed some pre-match dinner and got to know each other whilst discussing their own predicted scorelines and the line up and players they would choose if they were England manager, everyone was in agreement that Callum's favourite player Harry Kane would be included! The agony of choice! - Callum picks his desert
The game itself started off relatively slowly but after Raheem Sterling's 24th minute goal, England didn't look back. Harry Kane scored a second goal for the Three Lion's from the penalty spot during first half injury time and then a further 2 goals from Sterling in the second half (the first player to score a hat trick for England at Wembley since Jermaine Defoe in 2010!) and an unfortunate own goal from Czech Republic defender Tomáš Kalas gave England an incredible 5-0 victory.
Ian told us later that he and Callum had an amazing day where some wonderful memories were made and also giving Callum an incredible experience. It was also mentioned to us that the atmosphere and the Mexican waves, along with the 5 goals, were a real highlight.
It was fantastic to hear all about how much Callum enjoyed his Sporting Wish and so I must say thank you to everyone that helped make this possible. Your continued support means that more deserving boys and girls, like Callum, are able to get experiences like this and also help to create long lasting happy memories for the whole family, so once again thank you from everyone here at SCF HQ!
We've got lots of new and exciting things in the pipeline so keep a look out for updates very soon!