\n Jacob James, 24, and Jack Macfarlane, 23, from Halesowen, hosted their second annual charity football match in tribute to Jacob\u2019s father, Chris James, and Jack\u2019s mother, Jo Mills, who both died from cancer.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last year’s match raised more than \u00a35,000, with this year\u2019s total already nearing \u00a33,500 and donations still coming in.\n<\/p>\n
\n A portion of the funds will go to Tallinding School in The Gambia, where Mr James\u2019 father was named ‘Honorary Father’ in recognition of his long-term support.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr James and his siblings plan to visit the school to continue their father\u2019s work.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr James said: “Dad was so loved by his family, his friends, his colleagues and everyone at Tallinding, and we are so proud of the impact he had on others.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The money raised in last year’s game was put to immediate use as we resurfaced all the classroom desks at the school, rebuilt the school toilets and provided months’ worth of rice to families in need.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Macfarlane\u2019s mother, Jo Mills, died of breast cancer in 2023 after being diagnosed in 2016.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Macfarlane said: “She was the best mum we could have asked for.\n<\/p>\n
\n “She was funny, caring, generous and would do anything for her family.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I was always very proud to call her my mum, particularly seeing her strength and positivity in the seven years after her diagnosis, never losing this or her great sense of humour.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Funds raised through the match will also support Macmillan Cancer Support, whose nurses cared for Ms Mills and her family.\n<\/p>\n
\n The friends said the support from the community had been overwhelming.\n<\/p>\n
\n In a joint statement, they said: “We cannot express how grateful we are for the huge turnout and everyone’s overwhelming support and donations.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob James, 24, and Jack Macfarlane, 23, from Halesowen, hosted their second annual charity football match in tribute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-346578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115032903138059565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}