John Pender a footballer and captain to most but also a Husband, Father, Grandfather and Friend and he now needs your help! John dedicated his life to football and played for Wolves, Charlton, Bristol city, Burnley, Wigan and Rochdale.

Burnley's captain from 1990 - 1994, who some of you might recall as ‘Captain Fantastic’, and the only Burnley captain to ever go up the Wembley steps as a winner, called Turf Moor his home for more than five years and made over 170 appearances for our club.

Joining the team in 1990 ‘Pends’ as fondly known by fans and teammates captained the team and winning a promotion at Wembley was a childhood dream come true for John, for the Clarets and all the Clarets fans.

Since John’s time as a footballer, he continued to work hard for his family, raising 4 children, who are all Burnley fans alongside John and his wife Denise.

Unfortunately, 2 years ago things turned for the worse for the Pender family and John started to lose his balance, fall over and struggle to use the left-hand side of his body. Things progressively got worse and after a lot of falls, John was ultimately diagnosed with a form of Motor Neurone Disease.

John is now fully reliant on his wife for all his needs and is fully wheelchair bound.

John’s quality of life is unfortunately rapidly declining, and we would like to ask for your help to assist with John’s quality of life, increase his comfort and experiences while he still has the chance to do so. John committed his whole life to football, in particular Burnley, so we ask that you, as the Clarets, Charlton, Wolves, Bristol City or any football fan alike get behind Captain Fantastic, one last time so we can, together, help John improve his quality of life, comfort, and experience.

Burnley being so close to John and his family's hearts we will be walking up and down Pendle hill on 15th January 2022 in our Burnley kits! everyone is welcome to join us and to raise awareness for MND.