Jack Grealish has shown his class by making a sizeable donation to help a young Birmingham City fan in need of an urgent clinical trial in the United States. Grealish famously came up through Aston Villa’s academy before establishing himself as a club legend prior to joining Manchester City two summers ago.
The England winger is known to be proud of his Villa roots but put their rivalry with Birmingham to one side on Sunday by chipping in to help Dylan, a 20-year-old Blues fan who is battling leukaemia and needs a potentially life-changing clinical trial to stand the best chance of survival.
A GoFundMe page, set up to help fund Dylan’s treatment in the United States, showed that Grealish and another anonymous donor had both contributed £5,000 to the pot. At the time of writing, over £116,000 had been raised for Dylan from over 6,700 separate donations, but this figure only makes up a small portion of the £1,000,000 needed to ensure his place in the clinical trial.
The donation page was shared by Birmingham’s official Twitter account on Monday evening, leading many fans to point out Grealish’s generous contribution to the cause. Meanwhile, a message of gratitude to all donors was posted on the GoFundMe page by Dylan’s mother, Kim, over the weekend.
“We as Dylan’s family and friends cannot even begin to express enough our gratitude for all the donations, shares, and messages of support (the messages really are helping us to stay positive),” read the message.
“Some of your names we recognise, most we don’t, but we really feel the love and prayers and we would like to thank each and every one of you individually for your support. Dylan is so touched by it all and sends his sincere thanks too. Please, please, please keep sharing his story so we can get it out to as many people as possible.”
Grealish has been known to carry out charitable acts in the past, with the City forward having used his position of influence to help those less fortunate than himself on a number of previous occasions. He raised £55,000 for the NHS by raffling one of his match-worn Villa shirts at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, while he was also credited with making a £150,000 donation to a local hospital.
The 27-year-old is also a long-time supporter of the Saving Lives and Children in Need charities and delighted an emotional wheelchair-bound City fan earlier this year by surprising her with a signed shirt at the Etihad Stadium. Grealish also honoured a promise he made to a young supporter with cerebral palsy by celebrating a goal at the World Cup with a unique dance that he was asked to do by the 11-year-old before the start of the tournament.
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