Linnets mourn their oldest fan

Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Burscough are mourning the loss of Vice-President Ellen Baybutt, one of football's oldest supporters.

The lifelong fan and volunteer at the First Division North's Linnets passed away last week aged 106. Miss Baybutt, pictured, never married and was made a Vice-President for life of the club in 2000.

The Linnets supporter, who was born a year after Burscough was founded in 1905, lived at a nearby care home after spending the first 99 years of her life at her home opposite Burscough’s Victoria Park. An avid fan, news of the club's fortunes were said to be among her first questions to friends, family an visitors from the club.

Along with her four Burscough supporting sisters, she spent years washing kit and running the canteen as they enjoyed some of the club’s greatest moments, including reaching the FA Cup’s First Round for the first time in 1959 and seeing the legendary England winger Bobby Langton manage his hometown club in the 1960s.

A delegation from the club presented Miss Baybutt with a new club scarf and flowers to celebrate her birthday last year and she would have turned 107 in November.

A spokesman for the Linnets said: "It is with deep regret that we announce that Ellen Baybutt has passed at the grand age of 106 years. Ellen was a stalwart of Burscough FC having served in the canteen and made sandwiches and baked cakes for the boardroom for visiting officials, staff and supporters. She will be sadly missed by her family, friends and supporters of Burscough FC."