BORO'S Premier League stars have come to the rescue of their female counterparts with a sponsorship deal that means MFC Ladies are now sporting the logo of the Finlay Cooper Fund on their shirts.
Boro's first team players readily agreed to help MFC Ladies when they heard they were struggling financially after going halfway through the season without a shirt sponsor, and were struggling to fund trips to matches as far away as Wales.
And the novel sponsorship deal means that The Finlay Cooper Fund, the charity set up by Boro coach Colin Cooper in memory of his son Finlay, will gain additional publicity by appearing on the girls' shirts.
Boro captain George Boateng and his fellow Premiership stars rallied around when MFC Ladies manager Marrie Wieczorek told him about their financial problems.
George said: "The players were keen to do it from the start. At Middlesbrough, we are lucky enough to have everything laid on for us in terms of travel, kit and all we need.
"Once we'd agreed to sponsor the Ladies team, the senior players discussed which charity we should put on the shirts and decided it would be a good compliment to Colin Cooper to support his charity.
"Coops is a gentleman and it is a very good cause. It's great that we are helping to publicise the charity even more.
Ladies boss Marrie said: "It's a fantastic gesture. Thanks to the Boro's players generosity we don't have to worry about our finances for the rest of the season. We can concentrate on playing football and winning promotion back to the Premier League.
"Our travel expenses are horrendous at the moment. It's costing over £100 to hire a minibus for every away match.
"Thankfully, MFC kindly covered our costs for our longest journey, to Caernarfon in Wales, while we were grateful to Paul Casey of Biffa for organising a prize draw in the Riverside's Legends Lounge that raised £500.
"A lot of our players are Boro season ticket holders and are really impressed that the players they support care enough to help us out like this."
"We know they are doing very well," said George. "Hopefully, they will win promotion back to the top division because that will not only be good for them but for publicity for the Finlay Cooper Fund. If all goes well, we would like to try to sponsor them again next season."
Thousands of pounds has already been raised for The Finlay Cooper Fund to support children's causes throughout Teesside.
Thats good to hear, it was so tradgic when Cooper lost his son.
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what a gap between the men and woman at boro, no wonder they are struggling, arsenal ladies are looked after just as well as the men, and that's why they are in european finals and winning leagues and cups,
i am sure the typical wage for a boro player is about 10k a week, and they cant afford a £100 minibus, terrible really, well done though for the novel idea of using a club charity to sponser the team, everyone's a winner
Will be good to see if they sponser them next season.
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