Proud of my beloved Owls

The story coming out of Hillsborough, the ground of my football team Sheffield Wednesday, is that for the next two years the sponsorship on our shirt will be donated to the Sheffield Children's Hospital. This move will obviously cost the club a few hundred thousand pounds but it is a great move for a couple of reasons:

1. Our recent sponsors have been crap (barring the genius of Chupa Chups we have had a casino and an Internet company in recent years neither of which were known by anybody).
2. Seriously this is a great boost to a local charity/organisation that is of vital importance to the city of Sheffield and the health of its kids.

I spent a lot more time at the hospital than I would have wished as a child. They helped pull a button/pin out of my lip (I was about four but even at that age I think I realised what I was doing was stupid), stopped the bleeding after I put my hand through glass door (chasing my sister and her friend), and mended both a broken thumb (I didn't save a shot during a football game, "I let a goal in and break my thumb? That sucks!" and little finger (doing a power slide on my knees in the school hall, I am convinced all the girls watching were blown away). I think that this move is good for all concerned, it gets exposure for Wednesday, during a time when we could all forgive the club for making as much money as they can, who have chosen an altruistic path. But most important is that a Sheffield institution gets some appreciation, the accolades, for decades of hard work. I for one will be buying the new shirt.