WARRINGTON Town FC has welcomed the Queen’s historic handshake with Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.
The monarch’s gesture of reconcilation in Lisburn reinforces the Non-League club’s own bridge building efforts in staging the now annual Peace Cup with a team from Northern Ireland, in memory of the two children killed and 56 people injured, including a policeman who was shot, during two IRA bombings in the Cheshire town in February and March 1993.
The memorial match was first started in the mid 1990s and was resurrected four years ago and alternates between Crewe United from Lisburn in Northern Ireland and the Evo-Stik NPL’s First Division North club’s Cantilever Park, where it takes places again this year, on Saturday August 4, kick off 3pm.
The fixture aims to back up the work of the town’s pioneering Peace Centre which supports worldwide victims of politically motivated acts of terrorism and was set up by Colin and Wendy Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim was killed along with three-year-old Johnathan Ball in the second bombing in Warrington’s Bridge Street, (both pictured right).
Warrington Town chairman Gary Skentelbery, who reported on the 1993 attacks as a local journalist, is a long standing patron of the Peace Centre and helped resurrect the event, which this year will be one of the lead up events to next year’s 20th anniversary of the bombing.
Special guests at the game will include Colin and Wendy.
The event is being supported by Warrington Borough Council and local accountants Styles & Co, and will help raise funds for the Peace Centre.
“The Warrington bombing proved to be a major milestone and turning point in the peace process which has steadily gained momentum leading up to the Queen’s historic handshake,” said Gary
Prior to the match there will be a special town hall reception on the Friday, when the club will also be marking the 25th anniversary of their appearance at Wembley in the FA Vase final against St Helens.
Picture shows Warrington Town skipper Mike Tomlinson proudly displaying the peace cup with (L-R) sponsor Les Styles, former Wales and Manchester United star Mickey Thomas and peace campaigner Colin Parry.
