The Bob Paisley Memorial

I'm very proud to announce that the Bob Paisley Memorial has been unveiled. Hundreds of Liverpool supporters, Sunderland supporters and local townsfolk turned out for the occasion. The Paisley family where represented by Bobs son Robert Paisley and his brother Hughie among many others. Hetton town clerk John Price organised the day and the lady Mayor Mrs J Heron oversaw the days events. The memorial was very well received and everybody was delighted to see it but, most importantly, the Paisley family where thrilled to see the great Bob Paisley honoured in this way in his home town. On behalf of the Bob Paisley memorial committee I'd like to thank the moderators of this website for allowing us to publicise our appeal here and I'd like to thank each and every one of you who supported this fans initiative in any way, be it by buying a T shirt, donating money or generally supporting us in any way at all. Each and every one of you should feel immensely proud of yourselves. I'd also like to thank John Moore and Peter Etherington of www.onthekop.com for allowing their LFC website to be the home of the Bob Paisley Memorial campaign. If anyone is still to visit Hetton-le-Hole to see the memorial that you have helped build then you may be interested to hear that Liverpool FC reserves are playing Sunderland reserves in Hetton-le-Hole on SEPTEMBER 17TH with a 7pm kick off time. The game is being played on the former Eppleton Colliery Pitch which is situated at the Hetton Centre, just a short walk from where the memorial is sited with an entrance fee of something like £3 so, if your in the area or are visiting from further afield, why not take the game in at the same time. The postcode for the Hetton Centre is DH5 9NE if you'd like to check google maps. I'd also like to announce that LFC.TV are showing a special half hour documentary on Thursday 21st August at 7pm which covers the unveiling very well. In the meantime, here are three youtube clips that show the unveiling Part One http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=P8nAaUt5qFc Part two http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=wpie558bFrM&...feature=related Part Three http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=yr2TheQvCdE&...feature=related So, that's it. Our crusade is over. Thank you all very much indeed. The Bob Paisley Memorial Committee John Marquis Glynn Jones Tony Magill Kevin Lynch Beverley Jervis Robbie Ashcroft Phil Pryce Andrew Swift And finally, Peter Etherington and myself, Ian Graves.

Hello everyone, I met with the Hetton council last Friday to arrange the unveiling time of the memorial. I also met with Dave Jefferson who is building the memorial and I met with wades memorials who are sorting the granite tablet for us. Everything was fine and we are all ready for the big day! The time of the unveiling is at 1pm on Saturday 16th of August and will take place in Hetton Mini Park. I'm pleased to announce that Bob's son Robert Paisley will carry out the unveiling. Also in attendance will be the Lady Mayor, Councillor Mrs J Heron. The Mini Park is where the war memorial is and its right next to a Somerfields supermarket. You can't really miss this as its right in the town centre of Hetton-le-Hole, just follow the signs for Hetton centre. The Hetton centre is the council offices and is right next to the Eppleton Colliery pitch that Sunderland use for reserve fixtures. There is parking available at the Hetton centre for anyone driving up. If your looking for Hetton-le-Hole on the map its just north of junction 62 on the A1(M) off the A690. As I said I spent some time with the builders Dave Jefferson and Sons who are carrying out the work. Dave came very highly recommended and is local to the area, which was one of our must haves. He's a great lad and came up with the idea of a time capsule under the memorial. We think that's a lovely touch and shows the pride that Dave Jefferson and Sons have in the work they're doing for the Bob Paisley memorial. So it should be a good start to the new season and we hope you come along and see the unveiling of the Bob Paisley memorial. EVERYBODY is more than welcome. Ian.

Here’s what we’ve all been waiting for – Planning permission has been granted! Everything is in place to begin the work of building Bob’s memorial and the Hetton-le-Hole council are preparing the area for the unveiling date, which is SATURDAY AUGUST 16th. We’re looking for an unveiling time of about 12.30 in the afternoon so that any reds that attend can enjoy the day, have a few beers in Bob Paisley’s home town then head off for the game although the time hasn’t been set just yet. EVERYBODY is welcome to come along on the day and I look forward to seeing you there. I’ll update this thread with actual times and any other arrangements as soon as they are formalised. Thank you all very much indeed, Ian.

Hello again everyone. Firstly I’d like to thank a company from the North East called GENTOO for donating a very generous £500 for our campaign. A number of company’s in the area have donated money but this is far and away the largest donation of its kind. Thanks very much to GENTOO who I know do a LOT of good work for the people of the North East and Sunderland in particular. This is the last donation we will be accepting as the fund raising part of the campaign is now CLOSED. A heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who have donated in any way to this memorial. We’ve been mad busy in recent weeks getting everything sorted out but we’ve finally got there. The plans are in and we’re only waiting for the council to officially give us the go-ahead to build. This will happen, barring any objections, on Monday 28th July. The council committee have already looked at them and the planning consultant was very impressed with our work to date and could see no problem whatsoever with granting approval. The builder has been hired. He’s local to the Hetton-le-Hole area and has been recommended to us by the planning consultant who is familiar with his previous work. The builder has also stated on quite a few occasions how proud he’d be to build the memorial. The final wording on the granite tablet has been decided on and the engravers are chiselling away at that. So now all there is to decide on is the actual date of the unveiling. After consultation with all the relevant parties we all agree that, as long as planning permission is granted on July 28th, a fantastic opportunity to unveil is before the first game of the season away to Sunderland, AUGUST 16th. I will announce this date officially after planning permission has been granted but put it this way, I’ve booked my hotel for the Friday and Saturday nights! Check this thread on Monday 28th of July for the expected announcement of AUGUST 16th. Not long now till Bob get his memorial in his hometown. Ian.

Another two youtube clips on this subject, featuring a very rare interview with Graham Paisley. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kvxIF3GwJzQ http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou_sic9Y2-8

The latest news in the campaign is that the final draft of the plans have been handed to Hetton-le-Hole council for their perusal and they will hand them to Sunderland City Council for the actual planning process to begin. While that is going on we have approached a small number of builders with the appropriate level of skill for our kind of project. I left this update until very late on in case we'd had a quote back from one of them but we haven't yet. We think we can expect that this coming week. We know what kind of materials we're looking for so it's just a matter of sourcing that. All of the work will be carried out by craftsmen local to the Hetton-le-Hole area and the materials will be sourced from there too if we can. We cannot give a date for completion until we get the go-ahead to build from the council but we'll be ready to build as soon as we get the nod. For that reason we're winding down the fund raising side of the campaign. Again, we've still to receive quotes from the builders but we're confident that we've got enough funds and we don't want to ask for money that we may not need. If we do need any more funds then we'll step up the fund raising and hold another event, but we'd like to thank every single person who donated their hard earned money to Bob's memorial. If anyone still wants a T shirt they are still available, although we can only order them in certain numbers now. Please email us at paisleymemorial@hotmail.co.uk with your order and we'll do our very best to accommodate you. The T shirt showing Bob with the old fellers in HLH is really going down well and the other very popular design shows Bob with the European Cup in '77. One more thing, during this campaign we've had a lot of lovely letters from people telling us about when they met Bob and some have even been lucky enough to have their photo's took with the great man. This gave us an idea. As you know, Jessie Paisley is following our progress very closely and really likes the idea of what we're doing. We've decided it would be a nice idea to collect all the stories and photos in a scrap book to present to Mrs Paisley after we've built the memorial. We'll include all the relevant stuff that we've got from the actual building, like the plans for example, and all the stories and photos will also go in. We're calling this A Scrapbook for Mrs Paisley and it will never go into publication, it will be only for Mrs Paisley as a nice keepsake of what we've all done for Bob. So, did you meet Bob? Got a nice story or a photograph? Send them along to paisleymemorial@hotmail.co.uk and leave the rest to us. Don't forget to include your name and where abouts your from (for example Ian from Garston in Liverpool) and we'll take it from there. Thanks very much everyone and we hope to get a few nice stories to present to Jessie when we've finished. Ian.

Alright John mate, sorry that I've only just spotted this. The memorial is going in the mini park next to Somerfields. Its that memorial park with the war memorial in it. They've recently had a grant to place a memorial to the miners in there and to get cctv installed and generally do it up a bit, so our project will be in exactly the right place and well looked after. the site is also very close to the old Hetton Colliery pitch that Bob played on as a lad.

A quick update covering a recent major contribution to the fund and the progress of the memorial itself. We have decided to not continue with the two company’s that we where working with on the memorial. We felt the progress was too slow and kept getting bogged down so after a little bit of reorganisation we’re now back on track BIG time. Plans have been roughed out and a site survey has been done. The measurements required will now be put on the final draft to send to Sunderland City Council for approval. This takes about a month as there is a certain amount of time they keep hold of the plans to see if there’s any objection to the memorial. After that they (hopefully!) give us the go ahead to build. We are presently sourcing builders and materials so when we get the go ahead we’ll be ready to get straight to work so it will just be a matter of the logistics of actually putting everything in place. We don’t need much umming and arring over the details of the project as we’ve been raring to go for about 6 weeks now so I can’t see anything to stop us getting the memorial built for pretty much around the time we would have liked. Many, many apologies for the problems we’ve been having but we’re all delighted with the progress we’ve had since our reorganisation. We really have got some fantastic talent helping us so it looks like we’re going to be VERY busy in the coming weeks. We’ve had a fantastic contribution of £600 from the Coleraine Supporters Club. This was raised through a raffle at their annual dinner dance, which I and two other committee members attended. The Coleraine Supporters Club has been a great friend of the campaign, as have all of the supporters of Northern Ireland. Several other clubs where in attendance and all of them donated to our campaign to build a memorial for Bob. Thanks to all for the donation and for the fantastic night with sound reds. Brilliant stuff. I’ll do another update next week as things are very much moving along now. Thank you for your patience and continued support, Ian.

Here’s all the latest on the campaign. Two more fantastic fund raising events have recently taken place. Our friends over at Irish Kop have held a football tournament in support of the memorial. It was held at ASTRO PARK in Tallaght near Dublin. Very special thanks go to the good people at Astro Park for donating the pitches, the playing time and also for helping with the organisation of the event, which was a massive task given that 17 teams entered. Well done to all involved and congratulations to the winners of the Bob Paisley Memorial Cup – Rafa’s Rejects. Special thanks go to Mark, a board member from Irish Kop who very kindly donated all the medals and trophy’s - a fabulous gesture and very much appreciated. Around 2000 euro’s was raised at this tourney. A magnificent amount which will go a long way to help build the memorial. The other event was me and my son Jacks walk up England’s highest peak – Scafell Pike. The weather was fantastic all day long which we where thankful for. The terrain on the mountain is really rocky and in wet weather it is usually treacherous and may well have forced us to call off the climb. Even so, I’m told that four people had to be taken off the mountain by Wasdale MR with the usual sprains and strains of such an arduous walk. I’m happy to announce that we completed the walk in a personal best time of…..9 hours! As you can imagine I’m very proud of my lad. He’s only 12 but was determined to get to the top. Well done Jack! I left this one to Jack to raise sponsorship for and up to now it looks as if he may have hit the £400 mark. Pictures from the walk can be viewed here…. http://paisleymemorialwalkmay2008.fotopic.net/c1504694.html A word about T shirts. If anyone has any outstanding orders that they are waiting on please rest assured that they are being dealt with as we speak. The response for the shirts was a bit overwhelming so we got snowed under at one point. We’re right on top of it now so any issues will be dealt with ASAP. Thanks for your patience. Now, about the actual building of the memorial. It looks as if the holidays and the architects other projects have held us back a little bit but rest assured things are moving forward. Our aim is to get this built in time for a nice sunny unveiling and we are still on track for just that. Thanks very much for all the fantastic support, Ian.

Hi again everyone and apologies for the late update. As you can imagine, all of us on the campaign have been incredibly busy since we started this at Christmas so we’ve been catching up on all the other boring stuff in our lives like work and family! Nevertheless things are still moving along nicely. We have submitted a rough outline of the memorials design to a construction company in the North East so that plans can be drawn up to submit to the planning authorities and we’re waiting for those to be completed. We’ll be contacting them in the coming week to see if things can be nudged along a little quicker as without the drawings we can’t move forward. As for the fund itself we’ve had some very generous donations from various parties. The Liverpool branch of the supporters clubs have recently sent us a large donation and the New York City Reds held a raffle before the recent Arsenal CL fixture, raising a magnificent $400. Our treasurer is negotiating a better exchange rate than normal from our bank so that we can maximise the NYC Reds generosity and put it to the best use possible. Private donations are still rolling in with donations coming in from the wider North East area and Hetton-le-Hole itself. Today, before the Blackburn game, I met the chair of the North East supporters club to accept a donation for £100 that they have recently raised for us. The next major fund raising initiatives are the football tournament that irishkop.com are holding in Bob’s honour on 26th April and my sponsored walk up Scafell Pike with my lad. We’ll be doing that over the early May bank holiday, although this will depend on the weather conditions on the day. So that’s it for now. I’ll update you more frequently than recently as we move forward towards building Bobs memorial.

A youtube of the fund raiser has appeared.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRml9JJkgug

What a great night the fund raiser was! Many thanks to Bob at retroreds for the huge amount of lovely signed stuff for the raffle and our great friends at LFC TV for filming on the night and donating the star prize of the signed shirt from the San Siro. This was won by a red who goes EVERYWHERE with LFC and was very well deserved. Well done! Thanks to everyone who came to support us and a big thank you to all the fantastic acts that entertained us so well all evening. The funds raised from this event came to £2,376, a fantastic amount. Thank you all for your generosity. Ian.

Announcement regarding the £5 raffle at the fundraiser. The top prize for the raffle is a shirt signed by the Liverpool team that beat Inter Milan at the San Siro. This wonderful prize has been given to us by our friends at LFC.TV who have been a fantastic help for this fans initiative. Other items have been donated by Bob at retro reds who is another great friend of this campaign. Please check Retro Reds website for details of the very special photograph that is available to buy to help our campaign and many more fantastic items for Liverpool supporters everywhere http://www.retroreds.co.uk/1.html Another great prize has been donated by Graham Paisley and this is a signed photograph of one of Bob's great sides. Not everyone has signed this but the likes of Dalglish, Souness etc. are all on there and it comes from the Paisley Family's personal collection. Tickets for the raffle are only available on the night to people who attend the fundraiser, which takes place at The Sandon near the stadium on March 29th, the night before the Everton game. Some tickets are still available for the fundraiser but it may be a bit late now for postal applications. Tickets are £10.00 and are available from the HJC shop opposite the Albert, The shop is open Monday to Friday 10.00 till 14.00. Telephone 0151 260 5262. Or email us on paisleymemorial@hotmail.co.uk to reserve your tickets. Don't forget, some tickets are still left for what promises to be a memorable night but you'll have to be quick. Thank you, Ian Graves.

Hello again everyone, here's the latest on the campaign. First, we have a bit of GREAT news. The granite has been ordered and will be with us in plenty of time for the summer. This is really good news as it keeps us on track for a summer unveiling. We reckon that the granite has the longest lead time of all the materials we need so ordering quickly was a must. It also shows that the money donated so far is being put to the use it is meant for – the memorial for Bob. The next step is to liaise with the construction companies we are talking to in the North East and we aim to do that very soon. We are spending the money on the memorial as it comes in but we are still a way off the sum that we'll need to complete our task so PLEASE, if you're thinking of donating then please do so. Every penny that comes in is helping to build this memorial for Bob and we are negotiating with all the relevant people in the North East to keep cost down. We have revised our target figure down to about 5 to 10 thousand pounds as we negotiate. For example some of the first quotes we got for the granite where around the £3,000 mark and we managed to get that for £1000 while not losing the quality we're looking for. The Spirit Of Shankly are fully backing the campaign and recently let me speak at the last meeting before the reading fixture at the Olympia. The message went down very well with loads of donations coming in. There is a youtube of it here… http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSZhBR8Ql4 Unfortunately there is a little bit of strong language so please be aware of that if you're very young or easily offended. After the meeting we held a quick bucket collection in just a few pubs around the ground. Almost £500 was donated this way in only half an hour and if we decide to do anymore you'll hear about it here first as it proved to be the ideal way for match going fans to get involved in building this tribute for Bob. The T shirts where available on the day and proved to be very popular with match going fans. Far and away the most popular shirt on the day was Bobs favourite picture of himself with the old fellers of Hetton-le-Hole. If anyone has pre-ordered one of these fantastic T shirts then please be patient. As we said at the launch we where taking pre-orders for a mid March delivery. We have now taken delivery of them from the manufacturer and they are being sent out this week although don't forget its Easter so a few postal days will be lost to us. They will be with you very soon though and I'm sure you'll be delighted with your shirt. They really where very popular and look the absolute business. The T-shirts are now available at the HJC shop opposite The Kop and the cost from there is £11. They can also be ordered online at our website…. http://bobpaisleymemorial.homestead.com/index.html Just follow the online instructions. Tickets for the Fund Raiser, which is on March 29th,are also available from the HJC shop at £10 each. They are selling very well and rightly so as it should be a very good night so please come along – everyone is welcome and there is entertainment aplenty with a very special raffle. As fund Raisers go ours will be more than affordable as we want to make this more of a 'fans night', particularly with the Derby being played the next day. I'm REALLY looking forward to it! Postal donations are also coming in and are very much appreciated. We've had donations ranging from 50p to £50 and some people have been moved to include letters of support with the donation. This gave us an idea. We where recently in the Liverpool Echo and I discussed this with Graham Paisley. He said his mum Jessie was keeping cuttings of all the press that we're getting so we've decided to keep all the letters we get so that we can present a scrap book of them to Mrs Paisley after the campaign so if your donating by post then please consider enclosing a letter for Mrs Paisley, I'm sure she'll appreciate this as the letters we have been getting have been brilliant. If you've written to us in this way thank you very much for your kind words of support. Here's the address for postal donations Bob Paisley Memorial Fund PO Box 72 LIVERPOOL L19 1WZ Donations can be made to directly to our HSBC bank account Account Number 73952886 Sort Code 40-22-25 Thank you very much for your continued support. Together we can make this tribute to Bob a reality. Ian Graves.

Hello everyone, here's an update on the campaign. A second youtube clip has been released showing the closing stages of our spot on LFC.TV recently. Here's the link…. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5zplqkAEEiM In the second clip, not only do you get to hear my closing comments but you get to hear Supersub telling us a little about Hetton-le-Hole. As Dave says there is a small plaque high on a wall of Bobs former school, but you'd be lucky to see it. It must be 8 feet up the wall and its around 10 inches across. The reserves game that Dave mentions was the recent fixture against Sunderland. They play all their home games on the Eppleton Colliery Pitch and three of our committee went up for that game and to meet the council again. I have to say, at the end of the recording, Rik from Milton Keynes - Don't give up that day job kidder Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far by either buying on one of our T shirts, donating directly or by buying a ticket for our fund raiser. Details for the T shirts can be found on this link.... http://bobpaisleymemorial.homestead.com/index.html And here's the link for the selling arrangements for the fund raiser but if you fancy coming along, be QUICK... http://onthekop.com/forum/index.php/topic,7515.0.html Please leave any requests in that thread as Peter Evo is dealing with the Fund Raiser, which should be a BOSS night. The tickets are going really well. Gerry in the HJC shop said he'd had seven requests over the counter before the West Ham game and he hadn't even put the poster up yet! If you're thinking of donating, buying a shirt or any other way of getting involved in this memorial for Bob then please do. Our intention from the very beginning was to allow as many people as possible to be a part of it, and your contribution, however small or substantial, will help to build this memorial. Thank you, Ian.