No more red as Boro take stand against knife crime

Middlesbrough F.C. will ditch their traditional red shirts for an all-white strip in this weekend’s Championship game at the Riverside to highlight the dangers of knife crime.

And the Teesside club is asking supporters to shelve their traditional home shirts, scarves and hats to support the No More Red Day at the Riverside for Saturday’s match against Coventry City.

The initiative was launched by local-born Boro players Hayden Hackney and Dael Fry at Teesside University’s Olympia pitches yesterday along with the founders of the Chris Cave Foundation, a local charity which supports the victims of violent crime and aims to prevent young people becoming involved in knife crime.

Teesside has the second worst knife crime statistics in the country and the Chris Cave Foundation was set up by the Redcar youngster’s family following his tragic death in the town 21 years ago when he was stabbed to death.

This weekend’s kit swap follows a similar campaign by Arsenal last season whose players wore all white kits for the FA Cup third rounds clash with Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium.

Redcar-Born Hackney, 22, who captained the side in their 3-3 draw at Norwich at the weekend, said the campaign was an important issue to highlight.

He said: "We're trying to raise awareness of the issue and for myself and Dael, it's particularly important because we're from the area and as a club we want to do what we can to raise awareness of the issue here, the dangers of knife crime and the impact it has on lives.

"I didn't expect the rates [to be so high] and we'll do as much as we can to raise awareness and stop that."

Charity founder and Chris’ mum, Theresa Cave said: “The Chris Cave Foundation works extremely hard educating young people on the issues around violent crime. We show the dangers, consequences and ripple effect of knife crime, gun crime exploitation and county lines. 

“We are overjoyed to have been chosen by Middlesbrough Football Club to join their campaign against knife crime and to be supported through funds raised which will be an enormous help to our work.”

The one-off all-white kit, which is supported by the club’s Pprincipal partners Kindred, BOXT, and Host & Stay, will also be used to raise funds for the Chris Cave Foundation and the MFC Foundation’s Kicks scheme and the players will also wear warm-up t-shirts bearing the name of the charity.

In addition to wearing the all-white kit, Middlesbrough will also deliver a powerful message through an anti-knife crime poem, written by Boro academy youngster Jacob Krishnan, aged nine, who will join staff and players from the men’s and women’s teams in reading the words which will be aired on social media, and shown in the stadium ahead of the Coventry game.

Middlesbrough’s head of business operations and community Helena Bowman said the club are keen to play a leading role in highlighting the danger of knife crime in the Teesside area.

Alarming statistics from the last year, until July, show that:

- A third of all knife crimes in Cleveland involve young people aged 24 and under.

- 57 per cent of all serious violence in Cleveland involved a knife or a bladed weapon.

- 186 people aged 24 and under were victims of a crime involving a knife or a bladed weapon in the Cleveland Police area.

- 63 young people were caught carrying a knife or a bladed weapon.

Helena added: “This is a very serious issue affecting our community. We want to highlight this and make people aware of the dangers and the effects this has on the lives of people.

“We hope that changing our strip at the Riverside and by creating awareness of this problem and asking our fans to do the same and not wear their usual colours will have an impact on people and make them think twice.”

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