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Westlife and Boyzone members attend Chorley game and speak of their ambitions for the club

Westlife and Boyzone members attend this weekend’s game at Chorley and speak of their ambitions for the National League North club.

A bumper crowd 2,087 turned up Saturday afternoon, to watch Chorley fall to a 3-1 defeat against league above Solihull Moors in the FA Trophy Fifth Round.

Three first-half goals from Solihull Moors saw Andy Preece’s side exit the competition.

Mark Ellis managed to grab a late consolation goal for Chorley in the final minute of additional time, heading in from point blank range, giving the home fans something to cheer about at least.

Chorley: Foster, Whitehouse, Ellis, Wilson, Blakeman, Hazlehurst (Johnson, 65′), Shenton (Brindle, 89′), Calveley (Henley, 70′), Horbury, Nolan, Ubaezuonu.

Solihull Moors: Hayes, Clarke, Sbarra, Beck, Mafuta, Shade (Maycock, 81′), Stevens (Benn, 70′), Labadie (Osbourne, 61′), Stearman, Craig, Whitmore.

Goalscorers: Stevens (2′, 44′), Sbarra (27′), Ellis (90+4′)

Cautions: Ellis (27′), Hazlehurst (32′)

Referee: James Oldham.

Assistants: Mike Johnson & Adam Nichol.

Attendance: 2,087.

Watching the game was the likes of Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch of Boyzone along with Brian McFadden of Westlife who all shared their thoughts on investing in the club.

Shane Lynch said via Sky Sports: A couple of business partners of mine have come in to help out actually quite a few months back. Invited me down. I came down, watched a game about November time, absolutely fell in love with it and they said, you want to get involved? I said, okay, I do. Well, let me call some boys first and let’s make it real. So I called the two boys and said, look, I’ve got this idea Chorley Football Club. It’s amazing. We all live in the northwest at the moment and it’s home from home, if you want to call it, is what we’re trying to make it. And it’s early days, it’s early days for us guys.

Brian McFadden: I love football. It’s a massive part of my life. And when Shane told me about Chorley Football Club, I loved the kind of romance of what this is. It’s a real community club. You can see how much this club means to the local community and for us to be able to get involved at such an early stage and try and get this club, our dream is to hopefully one day get this club into the football leagues or even earlier than that. If we could win a few more rounds of this, get to Wembley for the FA Trophy final, that’d be good.

Keith Duffy: We come from the north side of Dublin. We come from a hard working background and it’s all about family, it’s all about community, it’s all about people and charity. Football club is exactly the kind of place that we grew up. So it’s like coming home.

Brian McFadden: In 20 years time when Chorley FC has reached these heights. We want to show our kids and our grandkids ago we were a part of that. That’s what our dream is. Nice. I love that dream. Yeah. And also we just couldn’t afford Man United.”

McFadden revealed a deal is near, adding to ITV: “It’s pretty close. I’ve just been talking about coming to the next home game with my family so you’ll probably see quite a lot of us. We’re in.

“Shane’s business partner bought the club seven months ago and asked Shane to get involved.

Shane’s not really a football man but he knew that me and Keith love football so he got us involved, and Ronan. We want to be part of something from the ground up.

“I’m a Manchester United fan myself, I’ve got season tickets at Old Trafford, but it’s a corporation. You look at something like Chorley Football Club and you see this belongs to the town, it belongs to the people, it belongs to the community.

“For us to be able to get involved in something at that level and to try and take it to the next level, there’s a bit of romance to it.”

Speaking to BBC North West Tonight, Lynch said: “I fell in love with the place, they asked me if I would like to help out and I called the boys.

“We’re just here to build on the community, on the real stars who are on the pitch… and it’s very, very exciting.”

Keith Duffy added: “We’re from a working-class background in the north side of Dublin and it’s all about family, it’s all about community – and coming here today, it’s like being home.

“Everybody’s been very welcoming, there’s like a family thing going on here and hopefully we’re going to be the new adopted sons.”

Tom Clarke, the club’s chief operating officer, said: “It would be wonderful if they were to come in and have an active role within the club, and ultimately that’s got to be what our goal is set for, as part of those negotiations.”

This is how social media users reacted as Westlife and Boyzone members attend the Chorley game and speak of their ambitions for the club…

@jtoatoctok: Chorley not

@robmarsden85: It’s only words

@ChrisHarty14: Better start pumping money lads! As this team needs about 7/8 new players……. We need a squad this get out of this league & compete 🤣

@LancasterIsHome: Love Me for a Season

@Browny_90: “Our dream is to eventually get in to the Football League, or even earlier than that if we win a few more rounds and get to the FA Trophy final at Wembley” Does someone want to tell them they don’t get promotion from winning the FA Trophy?

@BleakAndBlue22: I’ve got no idea what’s going on but I’m slightly concerned that I may face longer queues to get my pie, peas & gravy in future…

@iMike1892x: As a life long Chorley fan, this would delight me

@OlCrabtree: It’s only words and words are all they have, to make their dreams come true….

@IAmSamJMartin: No more chasing round Dublin for me now 😆😆😆 They’ve finally come to me 😆😆

@JoshuaK44640227: 3 1, bet boyzone was chuffed with watching that 💙💛

@ST_1982: The Vanarama NEVER fails to deliver.

@PeteFarrell14: Love this – will annoy all the right people

@alishaa_marieee: Living rent free in my head this week 🤣

@Kingi8713: Typical. The first boy band I ever loved were in my home town today and I am in LONDON!!!

@thecricketmen: My home town is not real. Beautifully absurd

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