I, Danny’s daughter, went to take flowers up to my dad’s plaque at the rugby club a week ago as it was his anniversary. To find out it was gone! Rotherham Rugby Club decided to take down my dad’s plaque without permission after 24 years of it been there! The Rugby Club have made a new memorial wall around the side of the club which is lovely for families who choose to have a plaque up there, but in order for this to happen the plaques have to all be the same and there would be a charge of £90.  My dad’s plaque has been in the same place for 24 years where my dad’s family had permission to put it, his ashes were also scattered around the pitch and his funeral was there. Apart from when we had to replace it some years ago due to it being stolen, it’s remained there! It’s at the side of the doors as you enter the club. Me and my family and people who knew my dad come and visit his plaque at the rugby club as my family didn’t want him at a cemetery. 

All we want is for my Dad’s plaque back up in its original place, where it has been all along, where it deserves to be. 

The Rotherham Rugby Club are not wanting to put it back up and have said they will pay for a new one on the memorial wall around the side of the club. I now have my Dad’s plaque at home for safe keeping but us as a family really think it should be back where it was. We think it’s so disrespectful what they have done, without any knowledge or consent and no effort to try and contact any of us like they said they have. My grandad helped build that clubhouse along with his team mates, he was on the committee, he played and coached there and my dad and my auntie both grew up there, where my dad went on to play too. It was their life there. I dread to think what my grandad would be saying. I’m hoping this can show just how important it is to all of us that my dad’s plaque goes back in its original place, not just for me, my auntie and my nanny, it’s for so many more people too that loved and knew my dad and it’s for my little girl, so I can show her when she’s older where her grandad Danny is. We don’t have a grave at the cemetery, we have Danny’s plaque at Rotherham Rugby Club, at the doors, where people that loved him still greet him as they walk past it still, 24 years later.