Football lover loses 70 YEARS of memorabilia after shed cathes fire

A football lover lost 70 YEARS of memorabilia - including 50,000 programmes - after his shed caught fire.

Ben Grice, 22, had been passed down the collection ten years ago from his grandfather.

The Bristol City fan, from Huntley, Gloucestershire, said his grandfather began collecting in the fifties and Ben began adding his own finds to the collection.

He had stored the vast array of shirts, programmes, team sheets and signed pictures in his shed.

But Ben was devastated when he was called home on April 13 to find almost his entire collection destroyed by a suspected electrical fire.

Now, more than 30 kind strangers have jumped to help him replace the loss by offering their own historic football items.

Ben, a highway worker, said: "I got a call from my dad saying everything was gone.

"I was devastated. That's so many memories passed down the family, it's all gone now.

"But it feels so good that people have been getting in touch to donate - it's very surreal.

"There are a lot of good people out there."

Ben's shed contained around 50,000 programmes from the past 70 years.

It was also stuffed full of countless signed t-shirts, posters, pictures, tickets and team sheets.

But he was horrified after a call from his dad telling him to come - and he found it all destroyed.

Just 500 of the 50,000 programmes in the collection, dating back to the 1950s, survived the blaze.