40,000 pay tribute to Rhys Jones

Aug 25 2007

Rhys Jones gallery

Crowds at Everton’s Premier League match against Blackburn today paid tribute to murdered 11-year-old Rhys Jones with a standing ovation, while players wore black armbands as a mark of respect.

Everton management had anticipated a minute of silence to commemorate Rhys, who was shot dead near the Merseyside club’s Goodison Park ground, but the Jones family instead requested a minute of applause.

Rhys’s parents, Melanie and Stephen, and his brother, Owen, stood with Everton manager David Moyes as cheers erupted from the nearly 40,000-strong crowds.

The gesture, witnessed by millions on television, came after players, staff and Everton manager David Moyes expressed sympathy and solidarity with Rhys’s family.

Moyes said: “It is something we are all bitterly saddened about, we feel so much for the family, and this needs to be sorted out quickly. It is something that should not be allowed to happen in this city.”

Rhys was shot dead, wearing his Everton football kit, in the car park of the Fir Tree public house, Croxteth, Liverpool, on Wednesday evening.