Leeds United fan spreads smiles by donating Marcelo Bielsa goat to Ugandan community

Kate Murphy, 53, sent the animals with the help of the Nkuringo Education and Community Support charity (NECS), who supply education, medicine, and food to a village near the Bwindi Forest in Uganda.

Inspired by a joyous encounter with villagers she met on a gorilla trekking trip to Uganda in August 2018, Murphy has supported the charity for three years since, sponsoring a girl from the area - Bridget - to keep her in school.

Over Easter, NECS ran a food aid initiative which encouraged people to swap in their chocolate eggs and to buy hens instead, in order to provide eggs to poor families in the Nkuringo community.

Murphy was delighted to see the impact after funding her donation with money received by the family of a close friend, whose 17-year-old son, Nicky, was involved in a serious traffic accident while stepping off a school bus which left him with life-changing injuries.

“We just had the idea of turning something really negative into something really positive,” Murphy said.

“It's the smiles on those kid’s faces, when they haven't got anything, their smiles are just amazing.”

“It was brilliant.”

When NECS sent Murphy photos of families with the animals, she was reminded of a Spike Milligan poem which reads, ‘smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu, when someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too.’

Fond of the sentiment, Murphy hoped that sharing the pictures on social media could have a ripple effect and spread positivity to those who saw them.

“I can’t believe how many people liked it,” she said. “I don’t do social media at all, that’s just not me.

“But every time I’ve seen the pictures, I can’t stop smiling.

“Everybody that has seen them has just smiled, so I thought I’m going to share them.”

A huge Leeds fan, Murphy met her husband at a Whites game and plans all her holidays around the international breaks.

She shares her love of Leeds with Nicky, and so the pair decided to put a fun Leeds United twist on their donation.

“It's really sad,” Murphy said. “I'm such a big Leeds supporter, but in Uganda at the moment it's all Liverpool and Man United!

“We decided that we'll just fill the villages with Leeds United and tell them all about Leeds.”

However, much like Bielsa on a Saturday afternoon, Murphy soon found herself with a selection dilemma.

With the money available, they worked out they could send one goat - “it had to be Bielsa” - and seventeen hens. But which of the players would make the cut?

“It was really hard!” Murphy said. “It’s not easy, picking the Leeds team.

“It was the week that Hélder Costa left, and Adam Forshaw was the next name on the list, so we wanted to send him.

“But then Dan James came in, so we had to have James instead.”

Now Murphy is raising further funds in order to send a team of Leeds legends to East Africa where, soon, the likes of David Batty, Lucas Radebe and Billy Bremner will join Ilan Meslier and Raphinha in laying eggs for families in Nkuringo.

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