Tribute to a model professional
Sep 28 2006 By Brian Halford
MATT Gadsby will be in everybody's thoughts when Walsall play Mansfield Town on Saturday.
Just three weeks after the 27-year-old died while in action for Hinckley United at Harrogate, two of the clubs for whom he played league football meet at Bescot Stadium.
The death of Gadsby saddened the football world but nowhere more deeply than at Bescot where he came through the youth system.
In advance of Saturday's game, at which collections will be made for the Matt Gadsby Fund (to support his widow Sarah and baby daughter Milly), Walsall chairman Jeff Bonser today remembered the player as a model professional.
"Matt was a great guy and a model professional throughout his time at Walsall," Bonser said.
And I am sure that all at Mansfield, Kidderminster, Forest Green and Hinckley United, where he also played, would say the same."
The football world has rallied round to show its support for the fund, which has already exceeded £2,000. Many Saddlers' supporters have donated while the likes of Dean Keates and Jimmy Walker have given shirts for auction.
A group of fans from Mansfield will take part in a fund-raising cycle-ride from the Nottingham-shire town to the match on Saturday. "It is at times like this that you realise that, in one respect, football is just a game," said Bonser. "But in another, it is much more than that.
"In the grand scheme of things, results on a football field pale into insignificance but it is under the umbrella of football that people from all walks of life can all come together."
Matt Gadsby's funeral will take place at St Mary's Church, Newton Regis, Tamworth, next Thursday at 3pm