200 friends and family raise over £10,000 for suicide prevention charity to honour memory of beloved Shaun Armstrong

Shaun, who tragically took his own life on January 13th 2022, was a hugely popular figure in the Oldham community.

A die hard United fan, it is only fitting that this huge number of friends and family will be walking the 40km from Oldham’s Boundary Park to Old Trafford and back again tomorrow on Saturday January 21st.

It is the closest weekend they could find to his birthday on the 19th.

They are also raising funds for Papyrus, a charity dedicated to suicide prevention.

At the time of writing, they have raised over £10,000 to honour the much loved figure, who was a beloved primary school teacher who had even taught in South East Asia.

If you like to donate to this amazing cause, please click here.

I Love MCR spoke to his friend, Frank Evans about Shaun, and their plans for the walk.

“A group of friends thought it would be nice to do something for what would have been Shaun’s 40th birthday, and what started out as just us and the family has gone a bit crazy and now there’s 200 of us doing the walk from Boundary Park to Old Trafford and back again.

“Shaun was a massive United fan – and he would have been 40 – so it’s just fate that the exact distance is 40km there and back.

“A lot of his mates are Oldham fans too – and he’d never fail to mentioned once bagged a hat-trick at Boundary park for the High Crompton Conservative Club in the Sunday League Challenge Cup final, and they won 4-2.”

On the 19th January 2023, our Shaun would have celebrated his 40th birthday.

Frank was full of nice things to say about Shaun.

He continued: “He was honestly one of the best guys around. Everyone who met him just loved him to bits. It’s a massive loss to everyone. You wouldn’t believe how popular he was, people are travelling from Suffolk and London to take part in the walk.

“The best ones go first, you could never meet a lovelier person, always laughing and full of sunshine.

“It was infectious. When people heard what we were doing, they just wanted to get involved.”

“There’s probably people closer to Shaun than I was, but I went through some tough times and I got into walking. Me and Shaun did a lot of walking together maybe twice a week, and that really cemented our relationship.

“You can see by how many people are doing the walk, how much he was loved by everyone who met him.”

The walk is in aid of  Papyrus, which is a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide in young adults and the promotion of positive mental health.

Hopefully, the money raised will help prevent other families and friends from going through the heart-breaking experience of losing someone close to them that they love.

You can read all about Papyrus here.