Team reforms to honour player who died of cancer

TEAM-MATES of a defender who lost his battle to cancer have re-formed his old club – and named it in honour of the charity which treated him.

Cabrera Marie Curie AFC was set up in tribute to Iain Godfrey. Picture: comp

The new Cabrera “Marie Curie” AFC was set up last year in memory of 29-year-old Iain Godfrey, who died of bowel cancer after a three-year fight.

They teamed up with the cancer charity – swapping their old maroon strip to the organisation’s trademark yellow and blue – and paying a percentage of their weekly “subs” to the local hospice at Fairmilehead.

It is thought their matchday contributions make them the first amateur club in Scotland to establish and run a club with proceeds raised going directly to charity – netting £3500 so far in their first season.

Player-manager Jason Wood, 29, had been friends with Iain since he was 12, playing alongside him for various local teams. He wanted to combine his friend’s passion for football with the good cause that supported him towards the end. He said: “The team had disbanded because of various things like people getting older, having kids and stuff but this brought us back together.

“After Iain’s death, I wanted to start the club back up. It was something I needed to do.

“The rules of the league we’re in said we needed to be connected with a church or a charity so I went to Marie Curie and asked them.

“We basically set up an agreement with the charity that the guys would pay £1 a week from subs into a pot for Marie Curie as well as having fundraisers that we try to arrange on birthdays or the anniversary of when he died.”

Brave Iain, originally from Tollcross, was diagnosed with bowel cancer shortly before his 26th birthday. He underwent courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the Western General but doctors were unable to stop it spreading and he died on November 4, 2011.

Mum Carol Godfrey, 53, said Hearts fan Iain was “a perfect son” who lived and breathed football.

“The one thing he did say when he was diagnosed with cancer was ‘I’m glad that it’s me and not a bairn’. He said he was glad if someone had to go through it, that it wasn’t a wee one in pain. That’s the sort of guy he was.

“He would be well chuffed about what they are doing. He played with a lot of teams. Football was more or less his life. What they are doing is great. It keeps his memory alive and it shows how well liked Iain was.”

The club, which usually play at Saughton Sport Complex as part of East of Scotland Churches Association League, have organised their biggest fundraiser to date at the Corn Exchange tomorrow.

Organisers have set a £5,000 goal with a charity raffle and a special text code of IGNF82 £5 to 70070 which goes to Marie Curie via the club’s Just Giving Page.