Leicester Tigers bring smiles to poorly children

By [thall] terry hall and simon gilligan

A scrum of Leicester Tigers stars brightened the day for poorly youngsters in hospital.

Players arrived at Leicester Royal Infirmary yesterday to meet young patients in the children's wards and hand out early Christmas gifts, including free match tickets and signed programmes.

The team stopped off to speak to children, their families and nurses and posed for photographs.

Cavan King, seven, from Knighton, Leicester, who arrived at the hospital this week after being diagnosed with leukaemia, was thrilled to see the Tigers arrive to hand out tickets and sign autographs.

He said: "I like rugby so I'm looking forward to going to the match.

"It was really exciting to meet some of the players. They were all really big but they were very nice."

Amber Townsend, 16, from Eyres Monsell, Leicester, has been in hospital since August with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

She said: "They were quite nice-looking guys. It was nice to meet them and I'm going to try to go down and catch a game."

Donovan Elson, from Braunstone, was with mum Donna when the Tigers popped in.

The five-year-old has been in ward 14 for nine weeks after suffering brain damage following a seizure.

Donna said: "It's lovely of them to come down and take time out of their day to visit the kids in here.

"You can't miss them when they walk in because they're so huge. There was a lot of fuss everywhere.

"Donovan has never been to watch a game at Welford Road yet, so we'll use this ticket to take him to his first Tigers game when he's out of hospital."

Rugby league fan Katherine Foster, from Ratby, was happy to put her inter-code rivalries to one side after her one-year-old son Charlie received a visit from stars including Jordan Crane, Tom Croft and Toby Flood.

She said: "It was quite exciting for Charlie.

"It's really cheered us up. It's lovely that they've taken some time to come in and meet some of the children."

England flanker Lewis Moody, whose son Dylan was born in the hospital, said the players were touched by some of the stories they heard.

He said: "It's nice to come and say hello to the parents and their kids.

"Things like this definitely put things into perspective and as a parent myself you can really feel what these parents are going through."

Acting club captain Aaron Mauger said: "As a father-of-two myself it's pretty sad to see some of the children.

"Many of the players have young families of their own and we hope we can help bring a smile to a few faces of children who are facing Christmas in hospital.

"It's also good to see what a great job the nurses do here.

"They are amazing and we've been talking to parents who are telling us how much of a sense of humour they have and how they keep everyone smiling."

Tina Clegg, service manager at the Children's Hospital, said: "The children were really looking forward to meeting the players and having their photographs taken with them.

"The players always lift the spirits and put smiles on faces."