Cheltenham Town and Forest Green Rovers will put their local rivalry to one side ahead of ‘El Glosico’ on Saturday as the players will come together to support a local charity.
Both squads will warm up for Saturday’s match wearing pink T-shirts, raising awareness of a fundraising campaign for the Thirlestaine Breast Centre at Cobalt House based in Cheltenham.
The Gloucestershire charity is aiming to raise money to enhance facilities at the centre, including the purchase of a three dimensional mammography machine to provide a more accurate diagnosis of breast cancer at an earlier stage, to enable more effective treatment and to ultimately save lives.
Robins boss Michael Duff said: “I think it’s great that we are able to work together with our nearest rivals to promote the Cobalt Unit in order to raise funds for new equipment at the Thirlestaine Breast Centre.
“It’s important that the whole county is united behind a good cause and that we can all work together to increase awareness, which is clear from this campaign.”
Forest Green manager Mark Cooper added: “It’s very important to us to be supporting charities like this. It’s an initiative that we asked Cheltenham Town to get on board with at our stadium and they’ve taken us up on that which is great.
"It puts into perspective that it’s just a football game.
“We want everyone to get on board at the match and show their support for the charity and we’ll certainly be doing that on Saturday."
Julia Jenkins, head of fundraising at Cobalt said: “This new mammography equipment will be the only type of its kind in the whole of Gloucestershire.
“Cobalt has supported breast cancer services since the screening programme was launched in 1990, almost thirty years ago.
“Cobalt want to provide patients with the best possible chance of early diagnosis and using technology like this will enable more effective treatment and ultimately save lives.”
GCHQ (the Government Communications Headquarters) will also be turning their social media pink and many more local businesses across Gloucestershire have been showing off pink window displays and pink lighting in the evening.
The charity is hoping to raise £123,000 and the equipment will be gifted to the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for use by NHS patients.
They hope to have the equipment in place by February 2019.
Find out more and support the campaign
Ticket information: Forest Green Rovers v Cheltenham Town