Billy Sharp and his family .....

[Tuns]

I went through something very similar to Billy a few years ago and I really appreciate that he showed incredible inner strength to play, of which his son would be proud.

 

[essex blade]

deepest sympathys to Billy and his family

 

[breeny]

Our Sympathies to Billy and family, such sad news.

 

[TONYBLADE]

Our thoughts go out to billy and his family.

 

[Mendi]

Deepest condolences to billy and his family,he had the power to play and score on Tuesday night.

 

[jose_d_blade]

always had great admiration for Billy sharp, he's my lads hero. I was heart broken for him when i herd about his son, the look on his face when he scored said it all. my deepest sympathies go out to him and his family in this time of need. i feel so sorry for them all.

 

[diplomat]

From the Independent:

Sharp played in Doncaster's 3-1 Championship defeat to Middlesbrough on Tuesday night, hours after the club had announced the news that Luey Jacob Sharp had died on Saturday at only two days old.

The crowd commemorated the baby's life with a minute's applause before kick-off and Sharp opened the scoring with an outstanding volley after 14 minutes.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, Sharp used his Twitter account to thank fans of both teams for the pre-match tribute. "My goal tonight was the most important goal of my career dedicated to my brave boy luey jacob sharp I love u son sleep tight.thatsforyouson," he wrote.

"To captain the side tonite was an honour and a pleasure,the minute applause I was crying meant so much to me thanks to both sets of fans. My goal had to be something special tonight for my special boy. I'm so proud of him, and his mum @jadecarlie86." Sharp's girlfriend Jade Fair also tweeted: "@billysharp10 & I are grateful for the love and support we have received."

Both managers praised Sharp's attitude. Middlesbrough's Tony Mowbray said: "For him to score a wonder-goal, your headlines should be there really – a goal from heaven." After scoring, Sharp lifted his shirt to reveal a T-shirt which read: "That's for you, son" and referee Darren Deadman was praised for not issuing the standard yellow card for such a celebration.

 

[mattbianco1]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...by-black-armbands-gesture-death-baby-son.html

Very touching.

Can't even think what that must be like.

Do we know how he died? Was it a complicated birth?

 

[FleaPitBlade]

I believe he was born with Gastroschisis.

 

[DronnieBlade]

24th Minute goal scored today vs Ipswich. Just as Blades fans are due to start their own 24th minute tribute down at Stevenage.

You couldn't script it.

And as I type now an assist for good measure and 3-0 up at Ipswich

Mr Blackwell sure knows a good striker when he sees one !!!

Another one for lil Luey. Well done Bill.

 

[Selly]

Resurrecting this thread from last year as, despite what you might think of it as a paper, there is an incredibly moving interview with Billy and his better half in todays Daily Mail...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...arp-exclusive-Baby-Luey-fighter.html?ITO=1490

Match of the Day has a special significance for Billy Sharp. The fact he and his Southampton team-mates will be part of the Premier League highlights programme this season is a source of immense pride, but with that joy comes waves of the deepest, most unimaginable sadness: the memory of the son who is not here to watch his dad on a Saturday night.

Luey Jacob Sharp was born on Thursday October 27 last year and passed away just two days later. Billy, 26, and his girlfriend Jade, 25, were with their son when he died, just after Luey had battled for his life through his one and only episode of Match of the Day.

‘He kept going blue and then...’ says Billy, taking a huge, rasping gasp of air. ‘I kept saying to my dad, “This is it. He’s not going to come through this time”.’ Jade takes up the story: ‘You kept saying, “Can you make it through Match of the Day?” And he did. He was a real little fighter. You could tell he really didn’t want to go.

Feeling Blue: Billy Sharp and girlfriend Jade sit at their home in Southampton wearing blue bands for the Luey Jacob Sharp Foundation, as well as the t-shirt being worn by the striker
‘He never really cried but towards the end he started to cry and his lungs had failed so he was leaking fluid, brown fluid. We could tell then that he was in pain. We kept saying to him, “You have to let go now”.’

‘You knew he was exhausted by the way he took his last breath,’ says Billy. ‘It was like a grown-up’s last breath, like he was fed up. For me it was almost a relief because I knew he was hurting.’

Their eyes moisten but, somehow, the tears do not fall. And the words — these incredibly difficult words, the words no parent ever wants to speak — keep coming: quietly, respectfully and eloquently. Sitting in the living room of their new home in Southampton, the couple discuss how they dealt with being confronted by a new word, gastroschisis, a defect of the abdominal wall which causes the bowel to grow outside the baby’s body.

 

[Selly]

Part 2

They talk about how and why Billy played and scored for his then-club Doncaster Rovers just three days after Luey died.

Words seem to help, you see. Talking, saying Luey’s name — a name spelt to avoid the common mispronunciation of Billy’s middle name,Louis — helps.

Jade said: ‘After we moved to Southampton, as the time went on, some of the girls, the ones who were pregnant or had kids, said they found it hard to come and talk to me because of what we’ve gone through. They didn’t really know what to say.

‘I feel bad for people because we don’t mind talking about it. It makes me feel better to talk about it.

‘But people don’t really know what to say. When we went on holiday people asked, “Oh, have you got kids?” And then it’s us who don’t really know what to say.’


Tribute: Sharp wore a T-shirt dedicating his goal against Middlesbrough to Luey
‘You don’t want to tell people but then you don’t not want to tell people,’ says Billy. ‘I say, “Yes, but he passed away”.’

It is impossible not to feel moved by this young couple’s story; by the way they were thrown, unprepared, into a fight to ease the suffering of their first-born’s short life and how, in their very different ways, they are coping with such a devastating loss.

Nine months later it is still an ongoing process: every day brings its new challenges. This October, the anniversary of Luey’s birth and death, will bring even more.

Billy said: ‘You see little boys who are the same age and you think, “Luey would have done that”. But you just want to know: would he have done that? What would he have been doing?’

‘We never got to know, did we...?’ says Jade. ‘Every minute of every day, you wonder.’

‘Moments,’ Billy calls them. He shudders slightly at some memories and smiles warmly at others. They are, after all, times when Luey still feels a part of his parents’ lives. The day Southampton got promoted, thanks to a 4-0 home win over Coventry City, was one of those ‘moments’.

‘The lads took their kids on to the pitch,’ says Sharp. ‘That was the one bit where I thought, “He could have been here now, in his kit”.’ Until Luey was born, Sharp says he played every game for his mum and dad. They have never missed a match, since he started playing in Sheffield at the age of six. But now he plays for Luey, in a pair of boots with ‘LJS’ on the heels.

Football provided Sharp with an outlet, a way of getting straight back into his old routine. Luey died on Saturday night and Sharp rang his boss at Doncaster, Dean Saunders, on Sunday morning and said: ‘Look, I’m ready to come back in and I’m ready to play on Tuesday.’

Sharp smiles. ‘The gaffer was brilliant,’ he says. ‘He said, “Right. That’s the best news I’ve had since I’ve been at the club. I’ll see you Tuesday”.’


Big impact: after his switch from Doncaster, Sharp helped Southampton over the line in the promotion chase
Doncaster played Middlesbrough that night. Sharp was captain, the players wore black armbands and there was a minute’s applause in Luey’s memory. Jade was there, too.

Sharp says: ‘We had a room at Martin House hospice in Leeds where Luey was, a really cold room, where we could go and see him. I kept going in and out and seeing him and the more I thought about what I was doing, the more it felt right. I just wanted to do this one thing for him.

‘Tuesday was hard because it was the first time I’d left him, but then I knew that, because he was in Martin House, it was just like they were babysitting him and I was coming back after football to see him.’ Sharp puffs out his cheeks, pauses for a few seconds, and then looks up and carries on, somehow.

He scored that evening as Doncaster lost 3-1, a stunning volleyed effort after 14 minutes that Boro boss Tony Mowbray called a ‘goal from heaven’. Sharp celebrated by revealing a T-shirt saying: ‘That’s for you son.’

It had been the kit man’s idea. He slipped the T-shirt under Sharp’s kit so none of his team-mates, only Jade, knew about it. Seeing it lying there was the one moment Sharp thought, ‘Can I do this?’ But he did.

‘I just knew I was going to score,’ he says. ‘The result wasn’t the right one but I’ve never scored a goal like I did and I don’t think I ever will do. But it was just meant to be.

‘After I scored the goal I just wanted to go home. From a selfish point of view, I’d done what I wanted to do. It got me back doing what I love and out of being in a horrible mood.’

Sharp keeps saying it was a ‘selfish’ way of dealing with his loss, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It was just his way of coping. He had the day off on Wednesday, the day of Luey’s funeral, and then Saunders put training back on Thursday so Sharp could be there when Luey was cremated.

 

[Selly]

Part 3

In memory: In the Premier League next season, Sharp will continue to wear his son's initials on his boots
‘We had to cremate him on the Thursday,’ says Jade. ‘And you went training after. And that was you, back in full-time football.’ In a 3-2 win at Ipswich Town that Saturday, Sharp scored again.

Everyone at Portman Road started clapping, providing another ‘unbelievable moment’ for the striker. A Barnsley fan was accused of vile abuse in January, but Sharp prefers to remember the support he gleaned from the game, both at Doncaster and then when he moved to the south coast in January.

He ‘needed a change’ and Southampton came in just at the right time — professionally and, you feel, personally as well.

‘Football does get a bad side sometimes but it brings out the good in a lot of things as well,’ Billy says. ‘Dean Saunders could have said, “No, listen, football’s just a game”. But he got me back into my everyday life. I tried to use it positively; even though I was hurting inside.’

Jade, however, could not immerse herself in the everyday workings of a football team. She was physically weak after giving birth and having an epidural and was on maternity leave from her job in recruitment.

She says everything was ‘just a blur’, adding: ‘I think I slept for about two weeks.’ But Jade has little time for ‘sitting around wallowing and feeling sorry for yourself’.


Better together: Billy and Jade have both needed the support of the other to get through the pain

She has thrown her energy into the Luey Jacob Sharp Foundation, a charity the couple have set up to raise awareness of and fund research into gastroschisis. Very little is known about the condition, which is why, when it was flagged up on Jade’s 12-week scan, she was sent home with a ‘leaflet with three paragraphs on it’ and advised babies with gastroschisis have a 95 per cent survival rate.

This is one of the most troubling parts of Billy and Jade’s story. They were completely unprepared for what was going to happen when their son was born six weeks early, weighing just 4lb 1oz.

‘We knew he wasn’t going to be well when he was born but we just thought he would be unwell for three months,’ says Billy.

‘He might have to have an operation and then he was going to be fine. But...’ He trails off. When Luey was born his bowel, which had grown outside his body, was ‘completely black’. He was too underdeveloped to have a transplant and the doctors knew as soon as Jade gave birth that Luey would only be alive for a matter of hours.

‘It was horrific the first night,’ says Jade. ‘We had been awake for 36 hours but we didn’t want to leave Luey in intensive care. We managed to take him to the hospice in a Moses basket with a heart monitor. If he stopped breathing for longer than three seconds it beeped to wake us up. The worry was if we fell asleep and he died when we were asleep that would have just been horrific.’

Billy looks up, proudly. ‘They said he wouldn’t make a few hours but...’ ‘...He did, didn’t he?’ says Jade.

It is quiet for a few seconds. They are both smiling, sharing another important ‘moment’.

 

[stannyblade]

thanks for sharing that Selly

 

[mattbianco1]

That's so sad.

I'm welling up in the middle of McDonalds

 

[Kenilworth]

That's so sad.

I'm welling up in the middle of McDonalds

Euurggh! In the middle of Kevin's what?

 

[Crazyblade]

Just reading that with tears in my eyes, my wife wondering what the hell I'm getting so upset about.

I'm so chuffed that Billy is in the Premiership - obviously wish it was with us, but I'll take another red-and-white team - he deserves it after the awful year he's had.

Perhaps we should set up something to donate to the Luey Jacob Sharp Foundation? Not sure how or what, but he was a Blade and it would be the right thing.

 

[stannyblade]

Just reading that with tears in my eyes, my wife wondering what the hell I'm getting so upset about.

I'm so chuffed that Billy is in the Premiership - obviously wish it was with us, but I'll take another red-and-white team - he deserves it after the awful year he's had.

Perhaps we should set up something to donate to the Luey Jacob Sharp Foundation? Not sure how or what, but he is a Blade and it would be the right thing.

Fixed that for you Crazyblade

 

[Crazyblade]

Fixed that for you Crazyblade

Indeed you're absolutely right. My sincerest apologies.

 

[Deleted member 875]

One of my closest friends went through his son being born with a similar condition, and yet he managed to survive it, and a few very serious complications as well. According to the staff at the Children's Hospital there have never had a patient in there as seriously ill before or after who has pulled through, but this was a beautiful little boy with a heart the size of an ox. I still can remember as clear as day how ill he was at that time, the horrible feeling of waking up on one morning expecting to get a call or message to say that he had passed away, and this was having a baby son almost exactly the same age. It taught me that we are all here for the good grace of god, and that we do have a superb facility in the Sheffield Childrens Hospital right on our doorstep.

As has already been mentioned, this year i'm a member of Team Theo, a team of amateur runners who are raising money for the Sheffield Childrens Hosptial charity, this is the reason why i'm doing it

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/our-little-miracle-is-always-up-for-a-fight-1-316349

and if you want to donate

http://www.justgiving.com/LordBrown77

I've been doing a lot of training for this, and what gives me a lot of motivation is that on one of my regular runs, i run alongside the A61 and there is a billboard for Team Theo, and picture of Carter, and if i ever question why i'm doing it, or what i'm doing it for, then deep down i know that it is for something worthwhile.