Pub football team set up as legacy to tragic landlord gets a community finance boost
A FOOTBALL team has been set up in memory of a Thurnscoe pub landlord stabbed to death while on holiday - with a community body providing the funding to help get the team off the ground.
Gareth Hart, aged 43, had been running the Thurnscoe Tap pub for only months when he was killed in April last year during a family break at Ingoldmells.
It had been his ambition for the pub to form its own football team, to play Sunday fixtures, but he died before that could happen.
Those left behind were determined to make his dream come true and have now done so - with funding of £553 being put up by the Dearne North Ward Alliance, to help finance the team.
The ward alliance is a community body, including councillors and others with an interest in promoting the area.
They have a budget provided by Barnsley Council, to help support grass-roots organisations and they opted to back the team.
A report stated the team was intended as: “A legacy team of a young man named Gareth Hart.”
He was killed in an altercation but “His wish after opening the Thurnscoe Tap was to set up a local football side, which is now not able to do.
“With that in mind, the pub wanted to do something in his legacy and fulfil his dream.
“More than 30 local Thurnscoe young lads and men joined the league to play for them on Sundays.
“Alongside that, they hosted a charity match in honour of Gareth, which was played on Saturday August 12.”
A family gala took place at the same time.
Mr Hart’s tragic death resulted in Joseph Malek, aged 33, from Market Place, Belper, Derbyshire, being convicted of his manslaughter.
He had denied murder and was cleared of that charge by a jury at Lincolnshire Crown Court, following a two week trial.
The two men had become engaged in an altercation near the Fantasy Grill and Balti in Ingoldmells, with Mr Hart being fatally stabbed in the heart with a pen-knife Malek was carrying.
The offender was sentenced to ten years’ prison.
Lincolnshire Police said Malek had claimed to pull the knife to try to make Mr Hart “back off” during a fight, but jurors decided he was guilty of manslaughter.