MCFC have announced that the club will reserve a discounted seat allocation for serving Armed Forces personnel Blues for each home game with immediate effect…
Chief Executive Officer Garry Cook explained to the official site:
‘We have long worked with the Royal British Legion on the annual Poppy Appeal and are delighted to now be able to offer longer term benefits to our armed forces personnel. We regularly receive correspondence from City fans who are serving their country all around the world and we hope that this discount will make it a little easier for them to see their team whilst on leave.’
Armed Forces Blues will be able to watch top flight football for tickets as low as £17.
City will be marking November’s annual remembrance by wearing a poppy woven into the team’s shirts for the Burnley game. These shirts will be auctioned in aid of the British Legion.
In other events, Garry Cook will lay a wreath in the Eastlands Memorial Garden before the game, current Armed Forces personnel and cadets will be selling poppies outside the stadium and 100 complimentary tickets have been made available to Forces personnel.
The two sides will be led out by Staff Sergeant Wayne Heathcote and Sergeant Paul Watson.
They will be accompanied by Jim Baker, who is the County Welfare Officer for The Royal British Legion in Greater Manchester.
Before Kick off, Jim Baker will read an extract from the poem ‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
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