Intimate evening with Liverpool legend at Indaba Hotel
JOBURG – Liverpool supporters spend an intimate evening with Liverpool legend.
Liverpool supporters received a rare opportunity of having an intimate question-and-answer evening with Liverpool legend, Bruce Grobbelaar, at Indaba Hotel on 18 June.
“Us as Liverpool Football Club arrange a number of these events, one of them being a meet-and-greet with legends, such as John Barnes, who is an English former footballer, and now Bruce. So this event is to allow local Liverpool supporters to get a chance to meet their idols,” spokesperson of Liverpool Football Club South Africa (LFC), Chris Midgley said.
Grobbelaar is a South African-born former Zimbabwean international footballer who played as a goalkeeper, most prominently for the English team Liverpool between 1981 and 1994.
Midgley added that this intimate event was made free to LFC members and R50 to outsiders as all proceedings will go to Grobbelaar’s charity of choice.
“We also raffled a Liverpool jersey and, all in all, we will be donating just under R10 000. We appreciate that Bruce gave his time for free and Indaba giving us the venue for free as well, so us hosting this event is a means of us giving back to the community,” he said.
Midgley explained how they got Grobbelaar on board. He was in the country and one of their members, who knows him on a personal level, was able to ask him to be part of the event. “We don’t pay legends to come out to such events as it will be more of a business transaction, which is not what we do, as we provide an experience for Liverpool supporters with legends,” he expressed.
In a previous session with Grobbelaar four years ago, the club was able to donate R6 000 which was given to an anti-rhino poaching charity.
In a bid to give back to the next generation of footballers, Midgley said they donated money to the LFC Foundation, which is then donated around the world. He added that one of the people on their committee was Nic Papas who is the chairman of Dainfern Lions. Papas is heavily involved in grassroots football and the LFC has donated a number of kits to the Dainfern Lions.
