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Oxford United boss on ‘bittersweet’ Blackburn Rovers win
Oxford United boss Matt Bloomfield dedicated their win over Blackburn Rovers to Amelia Plant after her tragic passing.
It was an emotional night for the home side, who paid tribute to their young goalkeeper who sadly passed away last week. The 15-year-old collapsed on the pitch during a match at their training ground and was honoured with a minute’s silence before kick-off and a minute’s applause in the 15th minute.
Bloomfield, who has a daughter himself, was pleased to do her family justice on an important night on and off the pitch for the club.
“It’s very bittersweet,” the 42-year-old said.
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“What we wanted to do tonight, above anything else, is make sure we pay tribute to Amelia and her family in the correct manner, with the dignity and respect that she deserved, and they deserved.
“For her teammates and her parents to join us on the pitch for the minute’s silence and our supporters observed it immaculately, both sets of supporters, so thank you to them for that.
“Tonight was about dedicating the evening to Amelia. She’ll live forever in our hearts. I hope her family will be friends of the football club forever.
“We had to make sure we paid the best respects we possibly could to such a devastating loss for her family.
“The last few days have been tough because football pales in significance in a moment like this because human life is far more important and family losing a daughter and teammates losing a friend is far more important.
“We wanted to perform with respect and perform properly to show the best light of ourselves on such an important evening for us.
“I don’t want to understate how important the game was for us, but in those circumstances it’s a distant second. But we’ve got a really important season that we want to go and execute.
“I didn’t want to let Amelia and her family down with a poor performance and not do her justice, so it was really important that we tried to put the two together which I think we did.”
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