Manchester United will honour PC Matthew Blades at Old Trafford before the Premier League meeting with Ipswich, with his widow and two children in the stands for the game. His two sons will lead the team out as mascots for Sunday's match against Manchester United vs Ipswich.
The tribute at Old Trafford
The club described Blades as a "proud Red, a devoted family man and a police officer who dedicated his life to helping others" in a statement to the BBC. That was issued after the deaths of Blades and PC Tom Clough in a head-on collision on the A66 near Middlesbrough early on 22 August.
Blades had also been a junior football coach at Seaton Carew FC and FC Hartlepool, which gives the Old Trafford tribute a local football connection as well as a personal one. Middlesbrough paid its own respects on Saturday with a minute's applause for Blades and Clough before the Championship match against West Brom at Riverside Stadium.
The match before the football
United go into the game on a mixed run of league results, with wins over Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Brighton, a draw at Sunderland and a defeat to Hull City in their last five. Ipswich's recent results have been uneven too, but this fixture is being framed by the tribute rather than by either side's form.
The focus at Old Trafford will be on the family members in attendance and the mascots leading United out, not the table. The match against Ipswich has not started, and the tribute will come before kick-off at Old Trafford.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
