Holly’s Hearts would like to give a warm welcome to everyone at Angels Utd to Butler Park the home of Atherton Town Football Club.
It will be a great privilege to share the field with you all today.
Holly’s dad Mark started arranging the game with Olly from Angels some months ago and have been planning ever since. We hope that this becomes an annual game so we can fund raise and raise awareness of our two great charities. The team is made up of old team mates, people who have helped us fundraise and supported us over the years.
I (Mark) have been with Angels since October 2022 after the passing of my little girl Holly in April 2022 aged just 5 years old. They have helped me massively with their support, being able to train and play games for them and all our angels is something I’ll be forever grateful for.
We’d like to thank everyone at Atherton Town who have hosted today’s game putting on staff to manage the bar and for providing a bbq.
Today’s game will be a tough test but we ’ re all very much looking forward to it.
H of
Holly Prince who sadly passed away aged 5 on 8th April 2022 from a Wilm’s Tumour, a rare type of kidney cancer. When Holly was first diagnosed in June 2020, family and friends of the Prince family began fundraising to help Holly through her treatment. Through the toughest times the family were able to use the fundraising money to buy Holly gifts for those long stays in hospital and when she was out of hospital they made lots of family memories such as going to the zoo or a pantomime. When Holly was in remission they went on amazing holidays and cherished every moment of family life together. These are memories the Prince family will never forget When Holly sadly passed away the Prince family wanted to ensure that other children with cancer could have the same experiences that Holly did. Those gifts and experiences made life a little easier for Holly and gave the family such precious memories together. Although grief-stricken the Prince family decided to recreate Holly’s ability to spread love and joy to others by starting up their own charity Holly’s Hearts.
Holly’s hearts improves the lives for children with cancer by providing gifts, experiences and respite breaks that can improve the child’s wellbeing and aid with recuperation from the harsh treatments that they have to go through Oncology families face a huge financial burden going through months and even years of treatments and hospital life. We hope to relieve some of that stress, worry and anxiety by giving positive experiences and joy to the children and their families. Children who have achieved remission (up to two years from NED) can also benefit from our gifts because as we sadly found out that cancer can return unexpectedly at anytime so making those memories together are so important.
Holly Olivia Prince our third and youngest child and was born 2nd December 2016. From the minute she was born we knew that Holly was a precious little girl. She weighed just 5lb 5oz so she was tiny but had a full head of red hair -the only red head in our family. She was just beautiful. As Holly grew up she had an impact on everybody around her. Everyone would always comment on her beautiful red hair and infectious smile. She was cheeky and funny – a little pocket rocket with the most incredible laugh .She loved to play jokes on people and everybody at nursery and school wanted to be her friend. Her older brother and sister were constantly bossed around by her and she always got her way.
On 26th June an ultrasound scan revealed that Holly had a Wilm’s Tumour on her left kidney.We were absolutely devastated.
The next few weeks were so hard. Holly had to start chemotherapy and undergo a 5 hour surgery to remove her kidney We were hopeful that we had caught it really early and the tumour was only small in size We were dealt another blow when the histology of the tumour came back as ‘high risk’ which means that the type of cancer cells that were in the tumour are resistant to chemotherapy and therefore the risk of relapse is high. We remained positive that all of the cancer was removed in surgery but Holly had to undergo 7 months of intense chemotherapy to try and kill off any remaining cells. The four drugs she had from September 2020 to March 2021 were extremely toxic. Holly lost her hair and was in and out of hospital with fevers due to being neutropenic. People with Bloom Syndrome do not tolerate chemo the same as someone without the condition so doctors reduced the dose but even with this she was struggling She got just over half way through the treatment and doctors decided to stop treatment as it was making her too poorly and she was at a very high risk
We finished treatment and then a few weeks later scans showed No Evidence of Disease. Holly was in remission and we were so happy. We threw a big party with all our family and friends. She was thriving and started in the nursery class at school. We had the best summer in 2021 making special memories together
3 months later on 6th September 2021 we went for our first 3 monthly check-up post treatment which was an X-ray and an ultrasound scan The scan revealed another tumour, in the space where the kidney used to be The cancer was back, Holly had relapsed The doctor advised against chemotherapy due to her sensitivity last time so we were referred to The Christie for
Proton Beam Therapy to the area where the cancer came back.In November 2021 Holly had to have 14 days of being put under general anaesthetic to have the proton beam therapy. She was an absolute superstar and this treatment had very little side effects compared to the chemotherapy. After this treatment our oncologist back at Manchester wanted to see us before Christmas to check on Holly We had just had the most magical week at Center Parcs Winter Wonderland where Holly was riding ponies and whizzing up and down slides. She seemed so well but the X-Ray’s revealed that the cancer had spread to the lungs in the pleural cavity and there were 3 tumours this time Her chances of surviving were now dramatically reduced but we never gave up hope. Holly started new chemotherapy treatment over the Christmas period. After two rounds of treatment scans showed that the treatment was working and Holly continued with life between chemo treatments, going to school and even doing a dance show But by the end of February 2022 scans showed that the cancer had progressed significantly around the left lung. Despite new treatments Holly became very poorly in early March 2022 She lost a lot of weight and struggled to eat so had to be fed through an NG tube.She thought on for four more weeks but sadly lost her fight at 8pm on 8th April 2022.
Our lives will never be the same without Holly. Our hearts have been broken into a million pieces and she will be forever loved and missed. We will never get over it but setting up this charity is a way of surviving. It gives us purpose and a way of ensuring Holly’s legacy lives on. Most of all we want to do Holly proud by making others feel happy when going through these tough times
An interesting few facts about some of the players.
One lad is 61 years old. He played for two clubs in Germany whilst in the army Tus Bergen and Tus Hiltrup. He represented Scotland at U16’s.
The other lad
YTS at Villa and turned pro, then Wigan Athletic for 2 years as a pro, loans at Chester and Wrexham, moved to Narpes Kraft in the second division of Finland and then moved to SJK on the Veikkausliiga which is their Prem. He’s now retired.
But don’t let that fool you into thinking we ’ re world beaters. The Atherton Town chairman is playing who’s 48 and the vice chairman who’s 45.
Can you name this player who is playing for Holly's Heart's today? using just his career stats from wikipedia
