Paisley Pirates helped young fan Josh O’Neill have a very special birthday last weekend, when they were asked to help make his 6th birthday one to remember.

His dad Michael wrote to the club saying that his young son, a P1 pupil at St Charles’ School in the town, was a huge Pirates’ fan, who dreamed of one day scoring a goal at Braehead-and his favourites responded in style to make his wish come true. Off Ice Operations Manager Jackie Turley takes up the story:

paisley pirates

“When we received Michael’s email, we had a wee bit of a problem, as our schedule means we don’t have another home game until 28 March, but we wanted to help Michael bring his son’s wish to life, so to speak, so we put our thinking caps on, and invited both of them down to our training session where we were preparing for our important Scottish Cup semi final tie against Dundee Comets the following weekend. As a community club we’re always pleased to get the chance to give something back to the fans who support us, and this was a perfect opportunity.”

“We showed him round the dressing room, introduced him to his favourite mascot, Shivering Timbers, and then took him round to meet the players and set up a shoot out area from where he took shots against two of our goalies, Danny Morris and Callum Donaghy. He was a bit over-awed by it all but, encouraged by the players, he fired home half a dozen shots, and we’ll certainly want to speak to him again when he turns 16”, she joked. “After the shoot out, we gave him a birthday card signed by all the players, and presented him with a commemorative puck, a specially scaled down hockey stick, and a Paisley Pirates top with his favourite character, Shivering Timbers, our mascot, on it, so we hope we were able to give him something to make his birthday a bit special.”

Dad Michael said,” I can’t thank the club enough for the lengths they went to in order to give Josh a special day. He talked about nothing else leading up to the event and was thrilled to bits for what they did for him, even if it went way beyond what he and I were hoping for from the Pirates.”

Author

Founder of Paisley.org.uk in 1998 and constantly strives to change peoples attitudes to the town, Brian is a self described Paisley Digital Champion who promotes Paisley via any means necessary. You can also follow me on X