Musician Tom Grennan pays for Argentine fan's trip to Wembley for Coventry play-off final
Superstar singer and songwriter Tom Grennan has teamed up with a builder from Redditch to make a Coventry City fan's Wembley dream come true - even though he lives on the other side of the world.
Lauti Murguia is from Argentina and desperately wanted to get to Wembley, to watch his beloved team in the Championship play-off final on Saturday 27th May, against Luton Town.
He was pretty close to selling his car to pay for flights and a ticket, until an unlikely duo came to the rescue via social media.
Builder Ashley Monk saw Lauti's plight on Twitter and set up a donation page to help out.
Builder Ashley Monk says:
"I heard him say he was going to sell his car - I'd sell my car to go to football, but I wouldn't want anyone to do it.
"I don't think anyone should have to sell anything to go. We're one big, amazing family. I knew that".
Ashley had raised £700 on his social media appeal and was offering to host Lauti at his house.
But to Ashley's amazement, Tom Grennan, a fellow Sky Blues fan, saw his social media appeal - and stepped in to help out.
"Was it a dream ?"
He says he couldn't believe he was dealing with the star himself, saying:
"I didn't know what to do. I was shaking talking to him and it just didn't feel real for it. Was it a dream?"
Tom will be performing on Saturday when the Sky Blues play, so he won't be able to make it - but says it feels great to have the chance to help someone else enjoy the big day.
He says:
"Basically I'm doing it because I want him to experience the way I feel when I'm at Coventry.
"If it's such a community, it means the world to everybody who supports Coventry is it's like a family, so I'm doing it for that reason.
"And this is this is like a this is like a fairy tale story. And just to be able to do that for him is, is amazing.
"But I'm not doing it for anything else. Apart from just the love of football".
Lauti says he's overwhelmed by the support and generosity of the duo.
He says:
"I was at my job the other day when when Tom posted that on Twitter, I was at my job and I was sitting on a meeting and I saw my cell phone was on fire.
"It's more than a dream come true.
"So I am very excited, excited to be at Wembley and on Saturday, I really love Coventry. So this is just amazing".
So why does a football fan in Argentina support Coventry City ?
Lauti says a chance meeting on a FIFA game led to his new-found love of the club that is more than seven thousand miles away from his home in Argentina.
Lauti says:
"Five years ago I was playing FIFA, the video game, and started a career mode where you create a player, and I went to Coventry, and I googled it, and I just fell in love with the history and the Sky Blue army".
So who needs a player like Messi in the current World-Cup winning country, when you can support a Midlands club on the brink of returning to the Premier League ?