We have been overwhelmed in the past month with the support offered to us from Birmingham City Football Club. As a huge fan and season ticket holder I have been extremely proud with the way they have welcomed us with open arms and fully backed us, but of course this is because as we all know Harry Moseley touched everyone's hearts, particularly those here in the West Midlands. A couple of weeks later we were invited along to the training ground to get some photos with the players to include it in the article on us in the Blues matchday programme for the Crystal Palace game. For those who have never had to try and work with footballers before you won't understand how hard it is to get photo's with them particularly on a day when they have a training session then will be travelling to Doncaster later that day for the match on the Friday. Thankfully Steve Caldwell, Peter Ramage and Wade Elliott all agreed to stay behind and their photo taken with us. Georgie Moseley was invited to the shoot along with Michael Johnson and Birmingham City employee Mark Jones who is also doing the ride (known hereon as Ticket Mark). Blues official photographer and mate of mine Roy Smiljanic was on hand to take the pictures, so we would like to thank him for hanging around whilst we waited for the players, thankfully it was a glorious day. 
It all started with an email to my friend Sarah Gould who is the customer services manager at Birmingham City. She promptly replied to advise that she was keen to support us and have forwarded our event to the charity meeting that was taken place that week. As you can imagine companies and establishments like Birmingham City are inundated with requests like ourselves so we didn't get our hopes up too much.
Fortunately she came back to me with superb news that Birmingham City were 100% behind our event and decided that they would allow us to do bucket collecting in and around the ground as well as different photo opportunities prior to the event to further promote our course.
Firstly we were invited for a photo opportunity on the pitch prior to the Chelsea game. The majority of our riders were able to attend this including our main sponsor and rider Tim Andrews from Hollywood Monster and Blues legend Michael Johnson who is also taking part in the ride
The next chapter of our relationship with Birmingham City was the actual bucket collecting itself before the Crystal Palace game. Now this I thought was going to be an easy task, but getting 20 riders to be free on that day with work commitments etc made it impossible. Thankfully we had a team of welcome volunteers who have supported us throughout this whole cause from day 1 to assist us, so first of all a big thank you to Emma Bennett (Brian's wife) Eileen Castle (my mom) Anneliese Cherrington, Rachel Jennings, Gabbie Cabbie (Paul Collins) and Mark Hegarty, as well as our team of riders Brian Bennett, Georgie Moseley, Michael Johnson, Ticket Mark, Dave Brady, Si and Matt Barnes, Ray Heath, Brian Blackwell, Ian Rogers, John Gibson, Kevin Bennett, Ste Brown.
The next headache was ensuring that all the volunteers and riders had t-shirts so that people would know who we were and also as an extra show of support from Blues they suggested that we supply the players with t-shirts so that they could wear them for the pre-match warm up on the pitch. What a great idea we thought, especially when we were advised that each player was going to sign the t-shirt that they wore. Then the realisation of how much these t-shirts were going to cost set in along with the panic. Fortunately our panic was short lived as our main sponsor Hollywood Monster, agreed on top of what they had already sponsored our event with would also cover the costs of the t-shirts. This cost was a 3rd of what they had already given us so as a team we are extremely grateful to Tim Andrews and his company Hollywood Monster http://hollywoodmonster.co.uk
The day arrived and weather was not on our side, it had rained all morning which meant that we all had to wrap up according to rain/cold but allow the t-shirts to go over what we were wearing. Now for a girl this is very difficult, and poor Rachel who had to do a stint in the corporate area after the game had to dress accordingly for that so she arrived in a nice dress. However this didn't perturb her as she promptly put the t-shirt over her beautiful coat.
Once I had all volunteers at the ground I partnered them off and sent them off to their designated collecting posts around the ground, namely the turnstiles and clubshop. I have to admit all the staff at the Blues were golden and assisted us in anyway they could. Over at the main stand the steward even called up the local pubs and asked if a couple of volunteers could go in with the buckets to collect money.
Brian, Michael and myself were invited into the corporate area. Unfortunately most of the executive boxes were empty until nearly kick off but there was a couple of corporate rooms that had a large amount of tables that were entertaining guest. This is again where the staff were brilliant. On entering the Jasper Carrot suite which hosted approx 20 tables the compere for the room introduced us and then played a little game with the room. The game was to divide the room in half with Michael 'Jonno' Johnson on one side and myself on the other, we had to go around with a pint glass and see which side were the most generous. This was a genius of an idea as I am certain it coaxed people to give even more generously. Jonno's side came out as the winners but I think Cycling for Harry were the winners as we made well over £250 from that room alone.
At times of economic uncertainty I was surprised at how forthcoming people were to donate to our cause. Even the loose change they had in their pockets have made a huge difference. We had many people as well that stopped to talk to us and take the time to find out what we were doing and why.
Eventually 3 o'clock arrived so all the volunteers met back at the reception laden down with heavy buckets and stories of the past two hours. We all then took our seats in the Gill Merrick stand (new experience for me ) to watch the game. For a few of us it was their first football game let alone Blues game and what a first game it was, by half time we were 3-1 up! I'm sure I heard a few 'i must be a lucky mascot' comments. Even the villa fans amongst us looked like they were enjoying themselves!
Then the time arrived, half time,but this wasn't any half time this was Cycling for Harry's half time on the pitch. All of the team that were at the Blues that day
were invited onto the pitch and I had to speak in front of nearly 22,000 people about what we were doing and why. We were joined on the pitch by Blues mascots and Hollywood Monster's mascot. All three of them were sporting Harry Bracelets.
were invited onto the pitch and I had to speak in front of nearly 22,000 people about what we were doing and why. We were joined on the pitch by Blues mascots and Hollywood Monster's mascot. All three of them were sporting Harry Bracelets.We had another official photo taken by Roy and then dispersed back into the crowd. Our 5 minutes of fame went within a flash but not without a rousing applause from the fans.
So I would like to thank Birmingham City Football Club, particularly Rachel Williams who arranged everything for us and made sure we were included in the matchday programme and on the website as well as organising the half time pitch talk. I'd also like to thank Gabbie Cabbie who is a massive Blues fan and runs the Blues fanzine as he also included us in the fanzine that day as well as had a bucket to help us collect funds. He will be covering us again after our event so please keep your eyes peeled for that one. I have put a collection of photos of our day as well as the video from the pitch at half time. They include ourselves as well as Blues Manager (the messiah)Chris Hughton sporting his Harry Moseley bracelet (this pic was taken from the tv on the football league show) and also Marlon King and Nathan Redmond in their Cycling for Harry t-shirts before the game.
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