00:00For 10 years, Dartford Football Club has swapped floodlights for face masks, heading down to
00:15Darrant Valley Hospital to give back to their young fans who might be spending the holidays
00:18away from home. The team donate presents and head down to the children's ward to put a smile on
00:23some faces. I've done it for a while now since I've joined the academy for the football club,
00:28so I mean any chance to get to come back and give back in any small way that we can, I know
00:33that I'm in a position of privilege where I get to do what I love. So I mean coming here
00:38and seeing the kids and I'm just trying to give back in shape or form. Of course, especially
00:44in the midst of the season when we're in the losses, you can kind of get caught up in all
00:48of that when we're in 3D. We play to put a smile on the people's faces that have come to spend
00:53a lot harder money to watch and at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. You
00:59can sort of give back, I mean, a lot of it.
01:02Well, it's an away fixture for the darts, but they're playing like they're at home. It might
01:06not be the cheer of the Prince's Park crowd, but to cheer up one child this Christmas proves
01:11why the beautiful game is so beautiful.
01:13A lot of our children are here all over Christmas. They miss things like their nativities, they're
01:19not able to get involved in that festive stuff. To just be able to give them this little bit
01:23of joy just means everything. No, obviously we, the NHS is stretched and, you know, we
01:29are working as hard as we can, but we really appreciate people going out there, their time
01:33to do all of this and to give this to the kids and to the staff. I mean, considering how
01:38things are at the moment financially for people, we're so grateful for everything that we've
01:43received and we've got far more than we were expecting to get. So we, yeah, we're so grateful.
01:49The club's committee came up with the idea as it was something other clubs had started
01:52doing and they wanted a way to give back to the fans.
01:55We as a committee just come up, we're a very much community club at Dartford. We do things
01:59throughout the year and we just thought we'd do something back for the kids who are in hospital
02:03this time of year, which is not a nice place to be. So we just thought we'd give something
02:07back to the community at Christmas and that's how we got involved with it. You can't,
02:11it's something different, you know what I mean? To see their faces light up when they're
02:14sick, not well. It's a horrible place to be and just that little bit of joy on their
02:20faces at this time is lovely. Yeah, we're all mini-father Christmas really.
02:24The darts are no stranger to await matches, but the children on the ward might not have
02:28spent the holidays away from home before. So hopefully seeing their local team giving
02:33them a gift will be the assist they need for some Christmas joy.
02:36Finn McDermott for KMTV in Dartford.
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