Butcher made a bucket list of things he wanted to experience while he still could, and among them was attending a Coritiba match at their Couto Pereira stadium with his brother-in-law.<\/p>\n
While breathing difficulties and a loss of mobility have prevented that, Coritiba heard about Butcher’s story and decided to honour him before their Serie A win against Chapocoense.<\/p>\n
As well as bearing his name, the front of the players’ shirts read: “Your strength inspires us. We stand as one.”<\/p>\n
Incorporated into the design was a sunflower, the international symbol of awareness for non-visible disabilities.<\/p>\n
Following the Brazilian national anthem, the players posed with a banner bearing Butcher’s name and the signatures of Coritiba fans, players and staff.<\/p>\n
“We sat there watching it all from England, completely overwhelmed and honestly struggling to believe that this was really happening,” Ana Clara told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“To see Jonny’s name inside Couto Pereira, surrounded by thousands of people who had never even met him but chose to stand behind him, was incredibly emotional.”<\/p>\n
Coritiba said some of the shirts will be sent to Butcher’s family and an institution that provides assistance for people with rare diseases, including MND.<\/p>\n
“Last night Jonny said he wishes he could shake every hand and tell each person individually what this meant to him,” added Ana Clara.<\/p>\n
“We may never be able to properly express our gratitude, but we hope they know that this is something we will carry with us for the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n
“Even in the hardest chapter of our lives, there is still so much love and kindness in the world. This will forever be a part of our story.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Butcher made a bucket list of things he wanted to experience while he still could, and among them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-849234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}