Nottingham Forest will lead the tributes to a loving father, who had been going to matches for more than 50 years and helped paint the Brian Clough Stand which was built in 1980. Barrie Hayes, who was born and bred in The Meadows, had been going to games since he was a teenager, and the club has agreed to honour him with a picture and a message at the City Ground at half time of the match against Aston Villa on Monday, October 10.
Since 1985, Barrie, who passed away in August at the age of 80, and his youngest daughter, Natasha Toomey, had been going to games together. She has now paid a touching tribute to her father.
Natasha says that she was the only one of her four other siblings passionate about football, which gave Barrie a "great excuse" to continue going to games. The pair would go to every Nottingham Forest home game, and eventually brought Natasha's son, Blake, along to games once he developed a passion for the Reds.
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It was only in Barrie's final years when he was unable to go following his bladder cancer diagnosis. Fortunately, Barrie was able to see his beloved club return to the Premier League earlier this year, until he sadly passed away on the day of their first home game back on August 14.
Natasha, 41, said: "I'm the youngest of five but I was only one, bless him, out of all of us who actually really liked football so he thought 'great I've got an excuse to go.' So we were avid Forest fans going in the Trent End when it was the old Trent End when it was all standing in the 80s and early 90s.
"My dad also was a painter and decorator by trade and he actually pained Brian Clough's Stand when it was painted many years ago and had the Brian Clough writing painted across the stand. So that was his claim to fame that he painted Cloughie's stand.
"I was happy he got to see them get back into the Premier League because it was something he's not seen for a long time. And then he passed away the same day that we had our first home game back (in the Premier League) just after the match finished.
"He was such a big fan and lived 10 minutes away from the ground and always did. And so obviously I reached out to Forest and found out that I could make request if he could have his photograph in the programme and on the screen which they agreed to.
"My dad was born in '44 and I think he started going to the matches as a late teen. He always said to us as a young man he didn't have much money but he would go along.
"And then he didn't get to go much as my brothers and sisters were growing up because there were four of them, so I think money was spent elsewhere! But I came along nine years later and just found a passion for the sport.
"From '85 onwards we were there at every home game and then later on as my middle son was born he then found a passion for Forest as well so I bought he and my dad season tickets so we could all go together.
"It was only when my dad became unwell in the last couple of years that he wasn't well enough to sit in the seats because he had bladder cancer but he also ended up having to have something called an nephrostomy bag because one of his kidneys failed to work because of the cancer. So he wasn't able to sit in the plastic seats. So every game me and my son ended up giving him an account of the game, which was the next best thing really."
Following Barrie's death, Natasha let her friends on Facebook know about the tribute that was set to take place at the City Ground next Monday. It has since garnered much attention and hundreds of shares a day. Although Natasha and her son will be in attendance that day, she is hoping to find two more tickets so that her husband and daughter can also be there.
She continued: "I started seeing this post every day has been getting about 100 shares from people that I'd never met, just random people's names. I thought it was just really nice that people have really seen the importance in it and have been sharing it on.
"I've not been able to get all the tickets that I wanted so that my family could actually see it and be there on the day, so if we do get the response that I'm hoping we get from the shares that it's built up obviously we want to be there to see it. So I'm desperately trying to find someone that can help us get more tickets to the game because it's a sell out.
"My son and I can go because I've got a silver membership, but my husband and my daughter can't be there because I was only allowed to get two tickets. So I'm hoping that somebody out there would let us buy their tickets off them so that we could have all four of us there and record it for the rest of my family so they can see the events and see how much he meant to us and how much Forest meant to him as a fan."
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