Things will look a little different when England and Wales take to the pitch on Thursday evening for the pair\u2019s international friendly. The two home nations are set to go head-to-head at Wembley Stadium, with what is their first meeting since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n
It marks a break from World Cup qualifying for both teams, with both England and Wales well-placed to book their spot at next summer\u2019s competition in North America. Before they resume their qualification campaigns, it\u2019s all eyes on Wembley for Thursday\u2019s friendly.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the match though, the usual pre-match ceremony will have an unusual feel to it, given the mascots will be people who are living with dementia. It comes as part of a joint initiative between the two football associations, with 22 nominated supporters who have dementia getting the chance to walk out alongside some of the best players in the world.<\/p>\n
The initiative doesn\u2019t stop there, as in the second half, players will come out wearing shirts without names on the back. This is in a bid to highlight the struggles those with dementia face, specifically memory loss, which is believed to be the most common symptom of the syndrome.<\/p>\n
A statement from England read: \u201cThe historic moment will be delivered by Alzheimer’s Society and the FA at the dedicated \u2018Alzheimer\u2019s Society International\u2019 fixture, the fourth of its kind since the charity partnership was established in 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball fans have been nominated from across England and Wales to represent the many different faces of dementia in the UK, and will walk out alongside the teams to deliver the powerful message that it will take a united team to beat the UK\u2019s biggest killer. Those selected will replace the child mascots that usually accompany players onto the pitch ahead of kick-off and join both squads for the national anthems in a striking moment that will call on fans to help end the devastation of dementia by donating, campaigning, or seeking support for themselves or loved ones affected by the condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
England fan Paul, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease in 2019, will be among those joining the players at Wembley. He said: \u201cI didn\u2019t think at my age I\u2019d ever do something like this, and I was absolutely overwhelmed when I heard the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to cherish this opportunity; to have my family there watching and to share the moment with them will be incredibly special. I also hope it will show people that dementia isn\u2019t necessarily what you might expect, and that being diagnosed doesn\u2019t mean you suddenly stop doing the things you love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things will look a little different when England and Wales take to the pitch on Thursday evening for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,425,159186,393,12632,159187,159188,159185,94,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-479702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dementia","10":"tag-dementia-awareness","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-england-football-team","13":"tag-england-mascots","14":"tag-england-shirt-names","15":"tag-england-vs-wales","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-great-britain","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115331228207198235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479702","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=479702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}