Joe Joe’s grand day out at final

WINNING team: With mascot Roary and Joe Joe are (from left) aunt Andrea McKenna, dad Billy Atherton and grandmother Marilyn Atherton

Rugby stars help out at fashion show fundraiser

OLDHAM Rugby League Club stars Nathan Mason and David Cookson took time off from the Roughyeds’ promotion push to help the fundraising for a little boy with severe mental and physical disabilities.

Four-year-old Joseph “Joe Joe” Atherton will be Oldham RL Club’s mascot at Sunday’s televised Kingstone Press Championship One Grand Final at Headingley Carnegie Stadium, in Leeds, when Oldham go head-to-head with Hunslet Hawks with promotion and a £20,000 prize purse for the winners.

Weather permitting, Joe Joe will lead out the Oldham team in his wheelchair.

Earlier, the Oldham players will be on the pitch doing their warm-up in new tops, sponsored by housing association Regenda and carrying a picture of the little boy whose story has captured the hearts of everybody at the club.

Oldham chairman Chris Hamilton, who has raised more than £20,000 for breast-cancer charities in the past, is to do another sponsored challenge for Joe Joe, details of which will be announced soon.

Donations to Joe Joe’s fund can be made online at www.gofundme.com/8m3oek or on Paypal at joejoesfund@hotmail.com.