YORK City are hoping for a razor-sharp performance at Hartlepool today, but bristly pair Keith Lowe and Luke Summerfield will be leaving their Gillettes behind in North Yorkshire.

The duo are 22 days into their Movember mission and are sporting crumb-catchers aimed at changing the face of attitudes towards men’s health.

Both players are hoping to raise awareness and money for the cause by continuing to grow their moustaches until the end of the month, although steely centre-back Lowe believes his team-mate has copped out a little in his choice of facial decoration.

“Luke has gone more for a goatee option, whereas I am going for the full tash and to look as stupid as I possibly can,” Lowe laughed.

The Movember appeal has broadened its objectives over the last decade and is now setting out to reduce mortality rates from prostate and testicular cancer, as well as male suicide.

It also plans to help men and boys understand how to be mentally healthy and to take action when they experience mental health problems, while fighting any discrimination in that area. Overcoming cancer, meanwhile, is a battle that resonates strongly with Lowe, who explained: “We have had quite a bit of cancer in the family.

“My aunty died of cancer when I was younger and my wife’s parents have both beaten cancer. It’s a cause that is close to home and close to my heart and it’s good that we can do our bit to raise awareness and a bit of money.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for the last couple of years but nobody really wanted to join in at Cheltenham. But Luke said he was going to get involved this season and, while we tried to get a few others to do it, it’s ended up just the two of us.”

The players have collectively received £150 in donations so far but Lowe, who claims to be too young to have a favourite-moustachioed footballer having been born in 1985, added that any further pledges would be gratefully welcomed.

“There are links to where people can donate on my Twitter page and I tweet about it around twice a day,” he said. “I’m trying not to bombard people with it but, if anybody can give anything to help, it would be much appreciated.”

The following links will take any willing sponsors straight to the players’ online donation sites - http://uk.movember.com/mospace/10460073 for Lowe and
http://uk.movember.com/mospace/10130225 for Summerfield.

 

Days of the seventies recalled aplenty

HIRSUTE heroes of yesteryear gathered at Pike Hills Golf Club to attend a “Boys of 74” dinner.

Members of the Minstermen’s only team to play in this country’s second-highest tier met up to mark the 40th anniversary of that occasion in aid of charity.

The only absentees from the squad on a memorable night were Ian Holmes, Ian Butler, John Stone, Barry Swallow and Cliff Calvert, who sent his best wishes by DVD from Canada, where he now lives.

Match of the Day commentator Guy Mowbray interviewed the players in between film clips of games from the 1974/75 campaign and there was also a slideshow of photographs throughout the evening.

Other former players like 93-year-old Alf Patrick, Dave Dunmore, Alan Woods, Gordon Staniforth, Tommy Stanley and Derek Hood were in attendance too, on a night that raised £1,500 for the Lord Mayor of York’s charities York Against Cancer and the York Teaching Hospital.

Staniforth led the grace when former reserve player George Myerscough, club historian Dave Batters and 1990s’ winger Martin Garratt, who all passed away in 2014, were remembered.

Among the highlights of an excellent evening included a quip by centre-back Chris Topping.

On his record of playing 355 consecutive games in a seven-and-a-half year period, he joked: “The only injuries I ever had was when Graeme Crawford kneed me in the back.”

Goalkeeper Crawford’s long-suffering understudy John Reynolds, who failed to make a single outing during the two-year Second Division stint, revealed: “I should have played at Manchester United when Graeme was injured but they gave him an injection and he was able to play, so I was hauled off the bus.”

Left-back Phil Burrows hailed unsung midfield anchorman John Woodward, who he believed played an instrumental but unheralded role in the club’s Football League record-equalling sequence of 11 consecutive clean sheets on the way to promotion in the previous campaign.

“A lot of that run was down to John Woodward,” Burrows reasoned.

“He broke so much stuff up in front of us and didn’t get a lot of credit for what he did.”