Meet the men raising funds for Derian House Children’s Hospice with football
A team of nine based in Burnley have organised a charity football match and family fun day at The Loom Loft Stadium in Clitheroe on Saturday in a bid to raise funds for Derian House Children’s Hospice.
The event, which will include youth football matches, family activities, raffles and local vendors as well as a charity football match between the Derian Knights and Georgia's Giants – the latter named after Robert Bleasdale’s daughter. All proceeds from the event will be donated to Derian House Children’s Hospice alongside all donations raised by Bleasdale on his JustGiving page, which currently stands at an impressive £1,590.
Bleasdale’s daughter Georgia has been attending Derian House Children’s Hospice since she was two months old after she was born with various complex conditions.
“The most basic one is chronic kidney disease, but she had something called a cloaca, which basically means she was born without an anus and without a urethra,” Bleasdale said when explaining the conditions. “She had one hole and she'd had 7 reconstructive surgeries. Her kidneys weren't connected to her bladder. Her bladder wasn't connected to anything. Her bowel wasn't connected to anything because she had no anus. Her spine isn't fully developed. She has something called caudal regression syndrome. So, her sacrum and coccyx don't have one, and L3 to L5 are underdeveloped, and the spinal cord only reaches out. So, she has a number of complex conditions, and they've been supporting me and her mum since she was two months old,” Bleasdale finished.
Bleasdale credited the Children’s Hospice for providing support for Georgia. The hospice also provided access to hydrotherapy pools and sensory care and offered mental support for him and his ex-wife. “I mean, I can honestly say my depression got that severe. Financial worries because I've been off work. Stress of the children and tearing me between Burnley and Manchester. Trying to support my ex-wife whilst forgetting about my own mental health. I genuinely don't think I'd be here today if it weren't for the mental health support I received as a parent,” Bleasdale finished.
In a bid to show his appreciation for the Children’s Hospice, Bleasdale began selling tickets for the hospice’s Christmas raffle – an act of charity that caught the attention of his friend, Les Walsh. To help Bleasdale in his fundraising efforts, Walsh suggested running a charity football match as a way of giving back to the children’s hospice.
“To be honest, it just started with a simple idea,” Walsh said when asked how the football match idea came about. “Rob's right, there are things that you will see and hear in life that will pull on your heartstrings, and children suffering is one of those things. I think anybody who's experienced loss will feel something, of course. So Rob was selling raffle tickets, and I thought, well, how else can I help and give money, which obviously I've tried. There are so many charities out there; you can only do so much with the resources you have.
“So it was more the case of what could I do, how could I use my skills in order to help Rob and the people at Derian House? So we started with the small idea of a football match, and then it became something different, which was then a question of how do you keep children entertained for several hours, which means we need significantly more entertainment. And then things just grew really, Walsh finished.
In the lead-up to the event, the pair have received support from Burnley MP Oliver Ryan and from Clitheroe FC themselves. Both Walsh and Bleasdale reached out to Andrew Jackson, acting chair over at the Blues, to discuss the possibility of using the stadium for the event. Jackson was more than happy for the pair to have access for the day. However, for Bleasdale and Walsh, it doesn’t matter how they reach their goal; they’re eager to give back to Derian House.
“This is all about raising money for Derian House; there's no other reason for doing this. This is about raising as much money as possible. Yes, we want people to come to the event, but if nobody comes to the event and we still manage to raise £5,000 or £10,000, we’d still have it because the aim is to raise as much money as possible. So we're not bothered how we do it; it's about supporting them (Derian House) when they've supported us,” Bleasdale finished.
Join Bleasdale and Walsh at Clitheroe Football Club on May 2, 2026, from 11am for a massive community day out – in support of Derian House Children's Hospice – and you can donate to Bleasdale’s JustGiving page here.