The exhilarating and enduring appeal of the FA Youth Cup comes from the opportunities it provides to many aspiring teenagers each year. It is a festival that represents an opportunity. It’s the beginning of the life cycle of football.
But this week. Not for Grimsby Town.
Rather, the FA Youth Cup captured the loss, grief and tragedy of a life cut short at the age of 16.
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Cameron Walsh is part of a Grimsby side that had advanced to the fourth round of the season with wins over rivals Shrewsbury Town, South Shields and Nottingham Forest but, before that, they had the chance to face visiting Millwall for a place in the round. The 16-year-old teenage defender died in a car accident along with his father, Dave, 40.
Wednesday night’s draw under the floodlights at Blundell Park was the first time Grimsthrough Under-18s had played since Walsh’s death on Jan. 6. No one on the team wore his jersey, his number 3, and possibly wouldn’t for the rest. of this season either. Instead, he rested on the club’s memorial bench, next to the Findus stands, surrounded by flowers and messages of condolence.
It is a club that is suffering.
Walsh was incredibly popular with staff and his teammates, who took it upon themselves to post shirts with his symbol so they could wear only warm-ups. Some had come to Walsh through the ranks of Grimsby’s young men over the past five years, others were classmates at the Waltham Toll Bar Academy in the port city on England’s northeast coast, who remembered him as a “friendly and passionate”. And we decided to be young. “
The fact that all those teenage football players were able to return to action, under the watchful eye of Walsh’s family, was a triumph in the midst of continued pain. Their eventual 4-1 loss didn’t matter much.
“The club and the staff are immensely proud of the lads for what they’ve gone through,” says the under-18s’ long-serving coach Neil Woods. “They’ve dealt with it incredibly well. They’re still suffering and it’s not going to go away for a long time. It changes the dynamic of the group, changes the dynamic of the day-to-day. He’s missed a great deal.”
The deaths of Dave and Cameron Walsh brought Grimsby (the town, simply their football club) to its knees. Both were widely known in the local football community, and Dave had been a player for Cleethorpes Town, the grassroots club where he also coached a young Cameron.
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Football was everything to them both, as was Cameron’s pursuit of a professional career in the game.
“Cameron is a wonderful kid,” Woods says. He enjoyed the philosophy of the team and being part of a team. He liked to share with his peers and required very little maintenance.
“He’d do what you asked of him and he was a very talented footballer. He had pace, he had a good football brain and I’m sure he would’ve had a bright future in front of him.
“But it’s not just Cameron, it’s also Dave.
“Dave was a very popular local footballer, and there wasn’t a game that Cameron played that Dave wasn’t there watching. He was supportive in every way. He just loved seeing his son play football.”
The crash site on Tetney Lock Road, in a rural part of Lincolnshire county, is just seven miles from Blundell Park. It is here that father-son friends would gather in the following days, laying flowers on the lawn. A telegraph pole A blouse from Grimsby Town is still preserved nearby.
An inquest into their deaths, opened last week, found that the Mercedes 300 car Dave and Cameron were riding in had gone off the road and into an adjacent canal. Neither could be rescued and they were pronounced dead at the scene.
Debbie Cook, Grimsby’s chief executive, said she felt “disbelief, pain and grief” when she heard the news. “These are still occupying many of us and will be for a long time,” he says.
The last 3 weeks have been on the verge of keeping the club together.
As early as Jan. 7, the day after the accident, a meeting was held on the club’s education floor between Cook and top executives to come up with plans they might never have foreseen before this Sunday. Support presented to all members of the club’s academy. , as well as their parents. Grimsby also kept Walsh’s circle of family informed of the tributes that followed.
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“The reaction of most people at the club will stay with me forever,” Cook says. “Everyone looked out for one another. Everyone checked in with others.
“On Tuesday (after the accident) I broke down in tears after doing a report in front of the camera with the BBC and I think word was temporarily spread on the school floor that I suffered that day. One player gave me a bigger hug than usual. A player instead of just waving at me as I was leaving the education floor, stopped his car, rolled down his window, and yelled asking me if I was okay. He didn’t want to do that, because his usual gesture would have been enough. However, that undeniable act of kindness and empathy meant a lot to me.
The first team’s Ligue 2 match against Notts County the following Saturday, a normal match that ended in a 5-5 draw, has become a tribute to Cameron and his father. The symbol of the 16-year-old was placed in the lead at the end of the program and a minute of applause took place before the start of the match. As in this week’s Youth Cup draw, the Walsh family was in attendance.
A drive to collect buckets at the turnstiles raised nearly £900 and the cash added to a GoFundMe fundraiser that now stands at more than £57,000 ahead of Friday’s funeral.
Cleethorpes Town has donated £500 and there are plans to pay a lasting tribute on its grounds. Cameron had been a mascot for the non-league club at its most important time, leading them to the 2016-17 FA Vase final against South Shields at Wembley.
These deaths have had a crippling effect on the city.
A local BBC report, two days after the crash, located an organization of Cameron’s friends at the crash site, with one of them saying it was “the worst day of my life. “Another young man said Dave “considered us all his own children. “”.
Cameron left school just six months ago to begin his apprenticeship in Grimsby. He played under-18 football last season and is a normal component of Woods’ defense this season.
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The FA Youth Cup third-round tie against Nottingham Forest on December 5, with Grimsby upsetting their Premier League visitors with a 1-0 win after extra time, saw Walsh play all 120 minutes. That was his biggest night in football but the visit of Millwall promised to be bigger still.
Whatever they go on to do in the game, it is unlikely the team-mates Walsh left behind will ever face an occasion as emotionally charged as the one they came through on Wednesday.
Woods spoke before and after the loss of his immense pride for an organization of 16- and 18-year-olds who found the resilience to make an attack so soon after wasting a friend under such circumstances. The draw had been scheduled five days earlier, but a frozen field caused a postponement.
“It was important that they got back doing what they do,” Woods says. “Dave and Cameron would’ve wanted that to happen, so this was step one. I thought they had a right go and we, as a football club, are so proud of them finding the strength to get out there and play again.
“There are kids who have been in school with Cameron from the beginning. They weren’t just teammates, they were friends before they went into football. Wearing the T-shirts, the instant applause, gave them everything back. For them, dedicating 90 minutes will be a huge step forward in helping them.
“It’s been incredibly difficult. You have degrees and you take courses (as a coach), but no one can prepare you for something like that. But whatever my players and my team feel, it’s nothing like what my family circle feels. “. We know that. “
Wednesday night is understandably dark.
Silence had fallen on Blundell Park long before a short tribute was read out by the public-address announcer, which was followed by another minute’s applause. A picture of Dave and Cameron was shown on the stadium’s big screen.
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“It would still be Cameron,” Woods says. The guys asked if there was anything they could do and they were the ones who made the warm-up shirts. You can see through the win how much it meant to everybody. “
Grimbsy put in an energetic performance and took the biggest lead in a goalless first half. It wasn’t until the youngsters from Millwall, in the championship aspect, took the lead, just before the time, that the home side calmed down. By the end, Woods’ young organization was emotionally drained. The trauma had obviously taken its toll.
“It’s very emotional,” Woods says. Some of those kids are 16 years old. It’s hard to deal with when you’re older. Dealing with this at his age is incredibly difficult.
“It’s not about (the outcome), it’s about the example and the memory of your friend. “
This week he emphasizes that they will forget him.
(Top photos: Philip Buckingham/The Athletic; Grimsby Town)