Victim keeper boosts Moors charity

By Neil Harvey

DONATION: Louie Moulden

SOLIHULL Moors goalkeeper Louie Moulden has been praised after donating a pitch invasion compensation award to the club’s charity links.

The 21-year-old stopper, on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers, was awarded £250 by Birmingham Magistrates Court after over-exuberant Southend United fan Cameron Sparkes leapt on to the playing area at the ARMCO Arena to celebrate Chris Wreh’s 64th-minute equaliser in the match between the two sides on August 13.

Sparkes pushed Moulden to the ground before rejoining the crowd and running from security staff before being forcefully detained near the turnstiles.

Sparkes, of Southend Road, Stanford-le-Hope in Thurrock, previously admitted assault by beating and going onto a playing area at a football match. He was sentenced to a community order including 100 hours of unpaid work.

He was also handed a three-year banning order preventing him from going within half-a-mile of Southend’s Roots Hall ground four hours prior to a home match, and from entering a town where Southend are playing away matches.

Awarded the compensation from the case, on December 19, Moulden vowed to donate the money to the Solihull Moors Foundation – acharitable arm of the National League club – and in particular to the families of the four young boys who drowned in the Babbs Mill Lake tragedy in Solihull on December 11.

Moulden said: “When I learned of the outcome of the sentencing, I wanted to denote the compensation money to the important work of the Solihull Moors Foundation, who have been fundraising for the grief-stricken families of the Babbs Mill Lake boys.

“It’s a tragic story that touches the club and nation’s hearts.”