Tom Parker’s widow Kelsey Parker honoured her late husband’s memory this Father’s Day by organising a legendary celebrity football match.
The Wanted singer was just 33 following a two-year battle with brain cancer – after first in October 2020.
This Sunday, Kelsey put together a stunning celebration on the pitch, with the likes of Ryan Thomas, Jake Quickenden, , Harry Judd, Ben Cohen, and Thomas Skinner taking to the field at Bromley FC, Parker’s favourite football club.
The mum-of-two was joined by her two children, Aurelia, three, and son Bodhi, two, for the occasion and carried them out onto the pitch before kick off.
Hosted by Scott Thomas, the fundraising event also saw the crowd give a minute-long round of applause in remembrance of Parker.
Kelsey, who wore a white t-shirt that brandished a photo of her late husband, appeared in high spirits and posed for a number of pics throughout the day with the celebrity team players.
At one point, she also showed off her football skills after being invited onto the pitch.
The game, which was won by team Parker, raised funds for the brain tumour charity Ahead Of The Game Foundation, which works with cancer sufferers and their families to provide rehabilitation, mental and emotional support as well as financial help.
Paying tribute to Parker on Instagram, Kelsey shared a video of their family dancing to The Wanted chart-topping 2011 hit Glad You Came.
‘Celebrating you today,’ she captioned the post. ‘Always loved, forever missed.’
about her struggle with grief and how she found it difficult to adjust to being a widow.
She explained: ‘Even when Tom first died, I felt like I had to wear black, and go out and have a veil across my face, and be this mourning widow. But life’s not like that now.
‘We’re so open, we talk about depression, we talk about anxiety.
‘We talk about all this stuff. But no one is talking about grief and I feel [the series] has given us an opportunity to talk about it and say, “you know what, this is what grief actually looks like.” And it’s not about wearing black – I mean, Ashley is wearing denim!’
