A Billy Kee signed Accrington Stanley football shirt has found a new home in the USA.

Earlier this year, Queen’s Awards for Industry winner, Langtec, set about finding an underfunded English sport team in the USA as a means of giving back to their largest market. A quick internet search led them 3,500 miles across the pond to ‘punk’ football team Bearfight FC in Wilmington, Delaware.

The football team rapidly became huge fans of Accrington Stanley Football Club which resulted in Langtec Managing Director, Andrew Turner, striving to form a connection between the two teams. In January, at an #AmazingAccrington meeting, he was given a signed shirt from Billy Kee to give to Bearfight FC as a surprise.

Seven months down the line and the shirt is moving onto the next leg of its journey at Bearfight FC’s headquarters – Wilmington based Stoney’s British Pub - owned by Mike Stone. Mike spent 30 years in the music business working for Warner Brothers, EMI and Virgin before settling down in Delaware and opening the pub. Stoney’s British Pub is home to an impressive display of the bands he has worked with adorning the walls, along with English Football paraphernalia - where the now framed Stanley shirt will take pride of place alongside Burnley and Leeds United shirts already there.

On Saturday 11th August, after the Bearfight FC vs Motorik FC match, players attended Stoney’s British Pub for a drink and to hand over the Stanley shirt.

Mike gratefully received the shirt: “It’s just incredible! It will go on the wall of fame with the other shirts we have kindly been donated. It means a lot to have been trusted with taking care of such an important part of #AmazingAccrington’s history.”

Jeremy Sharpe, President and Founding Member of Bearfight FC, commented:

“Accrington Stanley are a real inspiration to us, we are huge fans! Bearfight FC is a ‘punk football’ club, which basically means we do it all ourselves; we are player and supporter owned. We have followed their journey winning League Two and their promotion – to see a small club based in a small town do so well is amazing for us to watch. We are incredibly thankful to Langtec as well; they are really invested in what we’re doing here, and it’s spurred us on to continue and do better.”

Andrew Turner, Managing Director at Langtec, said:

“This is the second season we have sponsored Bearfight FC. As you can see through our sponsorship of Bearfight and local baseball team, Robots of Doom, we like clubs with cool names but their philosophy of ‘loyalty, inclusion, family and pride’ fits perfectly with our own which is what sealed the deal for us. It’s just fantastic to see #AmazingAccrington travelling the globe!”

For more information about Langtec visit http://www.langtec.co.uk/

For more information about Bearfight FC and to learn more about punk football visit http://www.bearfightfc.com/

For more information about Stoney’s Pub visit http://www.stoneyspub.com/