Earthquakes and Footy Shirts
Created | Updated Jan 15, 2012
As always, Rod has an interesting story to tell us. This one involves…
Earthquakes and Footy Shirts
I know a young man who is a Liverpudlian (from Liverpool, UK), his game is football (real football, which [he says] some nobs and know-nothings call soccer) and his team is, (of course), Liverpool, (no, not Everton). He's been resident in New Zealand for about seven years now (since 2005).
Came the earthquake that affected Christchurch so badly, as well as so many other places around – that's the February 2011 'quake, the one that happened during the working day and underscored the earlier one by causing so much damage, this time to people as well as buildings – and, well, he dreamed up an undertaking for himself that has turned out to be really rather admirable and I'd like to tell you a little about it.
As a brief aside, he is a theatre technician (anaesthetics) and was ever so thankful that no-one was actually under the knife at the time – in his theatre anyway.
What he did was this: he contacted a couple of friends in UK and the two Liverpool Premier League football clubs. Subsequently, by chasing up more clubs and pursuing some others unmercifully, he gained a collection of team shirts, signed by the players – and some signed photographs.
By putting them up on TradeMe, (the NZ auction website), he has been able to donate, so far:
| NZ$ $2,000 to the St John Christchurch appeal $6,000 to the Red Cross Earthquake appeal $1,000 to the Japan Red Cross Earthquake appeal | (Rough conversions) (1,000GBP / 1,570 USD) (3,000GBP / 4,720 USD) (500GBP / 790 USD / 6,000JY) |
That's a total of some 4,500GBP / 7,000USD.
At this telling, there are two to go, including one American Football team (that no-one in NZ seems interested in [ha!]).
That man is my son-in-law and father to my two little grandsons. As a brief aside, he is a theatre technician (anaesthetics) and was ever so thankful that no-one was on the bench in his workshop, actually under the knife at the time – in his theatre anyway.
