Tue, 14 Mar 2017
No5 Barristers’ Chambers are to donate their Birmingham City FC ‘back of the shirt’ sponsorship to a leading UK-wide brain injury charity.
No5 have been sponsoring the Championship team for the past two seasons. On Saturday, March 18th, when Championship League leaders Newcastle United visit St Andrew’s, they have agreed to donate their back of shirt sponsorship and digital board advertising to Headway – the brain injury association.
Birmingham City FC players will wear special one-off kits featuring Headway’s logo with the aim to help raise more awareness of brain injuries in sports as well as vital funds for the charity.
Headway works to improve the lives of people affected by brain injury through a range of frontline services including a network of around 130 groups and branches across the UK. The charity supports individuals, families and carers to adapt to the challenges brain injury can bring.
Alongside the players wearing the kits, the match day mascots will have special kits with the Headway logo emblazoned on the front. Headway Ambassador, Team GB Paralympian and Cerebral Palsy Football Captain Jack Rutter, will be the special guest on the day. He will be interviewed by Sky TV presenter, Chris Skudder at half-time.
Former Birmingham City youth team player Jack was 18 years old when, a month away from signing his first professional contract, he and headed out for a celebratory night with friends at a nightclub in Gloucester. A few hours later, his life changed irreparably when he was brutally assaulted in an unprovoked attack outside the club. A sickening punch to the back of Jack’s head caused him to fall and hit his head on the curb, leaving him with a brain injury. Jack woke up from a coma in intensive care with his dreams of becoming a professional footballer shattered. Jack then began the slow and arduous task of rebuilding his life with help from Headway.
Showing tremendous courage and tenacity, Jack has since gone on to achieve great things, not least captaining the GB Football team at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro last summer.
Other promotional activity on the day will include Headway branding in and around the stadium and volunteers, staff and brain injury survivors from Headway Birmingham and Solihull around the ground handing out leaflets and speaking to fans about the importance of being concussion aware. The Blues first team squad will also provide the charity with signed playing shirts to be used for auctions and competitions all designed to get people talking and more aware of the impact of brain injuries.
Tony McDaid, Chief Executive and Director of Clerking at No5 Barristers’ Chambers said: “We have been working with Headway over many years and continue to marvel at the level of support they offer to individuals and their families post brain injury.
“The charity’s Concussion Aware campaign is an initiative that both we at No5 and our friends at Birmingham City Football Club fully support.”
Head of Commercial, Ian Dutton at Birmingham City FC commented: “When No5 Barristers’ Chambers approached us with the idea, we were delighted to support the campaign. As a football club, the safety of our players at all levels is of the upmost importance and we wanted to do as much as we could to raise more awareness on the impact of concessions in sport.
“We look forward to welcoming the Headway team and Ambassador Jack Rutter to the game for what should be a very special occasion.”
Luke Griggs, Director of Communications at Headway, said: “We would like to thank the club and No5 Barristers’ Chambers for their generous support and look forward to meeting fans at the game.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to raise awareness of brain injury. We all think ‘it will never happen to me’, but the reality is that a brain injury can happen to anyone at any time and the impact can be devastating. Indeed, every 90 seconds someone in the UK is admitted to hospital with a brain injury.
“There has been a huge amount of good work taking place to raise awareness of the risk of concussion in sport, and Birmingham City FC’s support of Headway’s own Concussion Aware campaign highlights the club’s positive attitude to this important issue.”
Award winning No5 Barristers’ Chambers is one of the UK’s largest sets of chambers with offices in Birmingham, London, Bristol and Leicester and is home to more than 240 members including 36 Queens Counsel.
