Our Happy House kids are over the moon to have a new football strip. It's been very kindly donated by Dubai Irish FC.
Tony Christian, who originally comes from Ormskirk and has worked in construction in Dubai since 2008, is the club chairman.
He said: "It was founded in 1997 as a men's football team and are the oldest amateur football club here in Dubai.
I took over as Chairman in 2018 and that same year we (myself and a guy called Len Holbrook) started a children's section.
We started off with seven children (mainly our own) with the aim of providing grass-roots football for children in Dubai the same as you would have in the UK, i.e. low-cost, family friendly, community-based. We now have almost 250 children.
In October of each year, our children get their new kits and we wanted to do something useful with kits from the previous season and began the search for a charity or good cause to support.
We wanted to do this for a few reasons, firstly, to make sure the kits didn't just go to waste, secondly to try and brighten up someone else's day who may be less fortunate than our own kids, thirdly to teach our children some good life lessons about themselves and others and finally, to see if we could make some new friends. girls and boys will now turn out in the signature green of the club."
We are delighted they chose Happy House and our children were over the moon when the new kit arrived.
They couldn't wait to kick off in the new colours and started with a game girls v boys as Papa Dave tells us.
Huge thanks to Tony and to everyone connected with Dubai Irish FC for this wonderful gift. Like everything donated to Happy House it will be worn, washed and worn until it wears out!
