The football community has come together to offer its support to Bashley FC after their player, Jordan Chiedozie, and physio, Reighan Taylor, were involved in a serious road traffic accident on Saturday evening, as they travelled back from their Pitching In Southern League Division One South game at Tavistock AFC.
The car that they were travelling in suffered a blow out tyre, which forced them to pull over onto the hard shoulder of the M27. It was then that another vehicle collided into them, causing serious injury to Mr. Chiedozie, who also counts Dorchester Town, AFC Totton and Poole Town amongst his former clubs.
The Bashley players have set up a GoFundMe page which, at the time of writing, has seen almost £20,000 donated.
“We are overwhelmed with sadness and shock at what has happened,” said manager, Dave Lewis, who has been a pillar of strength during what has been a traumatic week for the club. “The football fraternity has been brilliant and we’ve received so many nice and supportive messages. When something like this happens, you see the strength of the football community and it’s been far-reaching and a source of real comfort.
“The money raised through the GoFundMe page has been fantastic, but it’s not about the money, it’s more a token of love and support for Jordan.
“The Southern League kindly allowed us to postpone Tuesday’s game and it gave us an opportunity to get together as a group and try to understand and come to terms with what has happened. It gave us the chance to get our emotions out there.
“It was sombre, but a good meeting as we all needed to get together. It also gave us chance to rally around Reighan. Thankfully she suffered no physical injury but despite the obvious trauma, she remained calm and concise to deal with the situation when it happened and call an ambulance, which arrived on the scene within minutes. She’s an absolute hero.”
The thoughts of the Southern League are with everyone who has been affected by this and we wish Jordan well on his long road to recovery.
After some heartfelt deliberation, the Bashley players have decided to go ahead with Saturday's game against Willand Rovers. Both the Southern League and the opposition were supportive with whatever decision the club made on this.
You can donate to the GoFundMe page here…
IMAGE: Les Chase
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