Manchester United to Honor PC Matthew Blades at Old Trafford

Manchester United will pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades before Sunday’s Premier League match against Ipswich at Old Trafford, with his two sons set to lead the team out as mascots. BBC Sport reported that Blades’s widow will also attend the game with the couple’s children.

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Blades was a Manchester United supporter and a regular visitor to Old Trafford. The club included a tribute in its match programme, describing him as a committed family man and police officer who spent his life helping other people. United said it learned of the deaths of Blades and his colleague, PC Tom Clough, with great sadness.

The two officers died early on August 22 in a head-on collision involving their police car and a vehicle travelling in the wrong direction on the A66 near Middlesbrough. Five people in the other vehicle also died: Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, Makai Saddington, 18, Theo Rae, 17, and Cole Robert Worthy, 17.

Other football tributes took place on Saturday. Middlesbrough held a minute’s applause for Blades and Clough before its Championship match against West Brom at Riverside Stadium, while pictures of both officers were shown on a stadium screen. The commemorations connected the loss felt by the police service with clubs and supporters across the Teesside football community.

People also gathered in remembrance at Seaton Carew FC’s match against FC Hartlepool. Blades had worked as a junior football coach at both clubs, giving the local tribute a direct link to his involvement in youth football as well as to his work as an officer.

BBC Sport reported that 17 people were arrested earlier in the week in connection with the investigation into the collision, taking the total number of arrests to 24. The report did not state that those arrests had resulted in charges. Manchester United’s matchday tribute will place the focus on Blades’s family and his longstanding connection to the club as they attend Sunday’s game.