Footballers Pay Tribute To Mazhye Burchall
[Written by Don Burgess]
Robin Hood Football Club paid tribute to Mazhye Burchall on Saturday night.
Mr Burchall, 20, was killed earlier in the day in a motorcycle collision in Paget.
Robin Hood players and coaches said that Mr Burchall would have wanted them to play the game against Devonshire Cougars. The team and staff wore black armbands, and there was a minute of silence before the game.
Hood head coach John Barry Nusum said, “There was no doubt we would play, and Mazhye would have wanted us to play. Everyone wanted to do this for Mazhye. We wanted to come out here.”
Mr Nusum described Mr Burchall as “humble. It’s hard to talk about him. It hurts as he was such a young and had so much to come.
“He always gave 100 per cent. For me as a coach, he was one of the best to coach as he would do what was asked of him. I never had to worry as I knew he was always going to come to play.
“This has been tough,” Mr Nusum said. “It’s been a long day. There have been a lot of emotions today.”
Mr Nusum said he received a call shortly after the accident.
“I can’t really explain how I felt, as it was a sinking feeling. I’ve been going through this all day. We’ll go through the emotions; we’ll grieve, but I feel really sad for his family as he had so much more life to live.”
Mr Burchall’s teammate Lejaun Simmons described him as a live-free type of person.
“He always lit up the dressing room,” Mr Simmons said. “He was such a humble guy. I have no bad memories of him, and he touched the whole island. I saw that today as he was all across social media. He is going to be a very big miss across the whole football community.”
Mr Simmons said he found out the news at around 9am while he was at work.
“I broke down and left the job site immediately,” Mr Simmons said. “I had to go and clear my head.
“That’s the last thing I expected after playing with him on Thursday night. If I had known that was going to be his last game, I would have begged the coach not to come off at halftime and play the entire 90 minutes with him. I am grateful to touch the pitch with him, and I will never forget the memories he brought to the team.”
He said Robin Hood wanted to honour Mr Burchall by taking to the pitch.
“The team wanted to do this, but I feel this isn’t the way we normally play, and a lot of emotions were brought up, and a lot of things were on guys’ minds as they were playing. We just did our best for Mazhye, and fought to the end.”
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