Citizen Sport
Three Lancashire clubs show support for critical football coach
5:21pm Sunday 12th September 2010
PLAYERS and fans showed their support for Lancashire football legend Gary Parkinson who is still 'very poorly' after suffering a stroke.
Three of the clubs he has been involved with rallied around the man known as ‘Parky’ on Saturday.
The former right-back, who scored the Claret's winning goal at Wembley in the 1994 Division Two play-off, has been transferred to the Royal Bolton Hospital from Salford Royal (Hope) Hospital after suffering a massive stroke on Thursday.
Fans of Burnley and Preston, two of the clubs he played for, set aside local rivalries at half-time of their clash at Turf Moor yesterday to applaud as the stadium announcer told supporters of Parkinson’s illness.
The dad-of-three is now head of youth at Blackpool FC and players from the club dedicated their 2-0 win at Newcastle to Parkinson.
After scoring the opening goal midfielder Charlie Adam ran back to the dugout to grab a white t-shirt which had the words “4 Parky” written on it.
Ian Holloway, Blackpool’s manager, said in his column in a national newspaper that part of him didn’t want the game to go ahead.
He said: “Our youth-team coach Gary Parkinson is really poorly and having to break the news to the lads on Friday was the hardest thing I’ve had to do as a manager. Many of us were in tears.”