Jonesy’s X-Men Dubai Rugby 7’s Jersey
Jonesy’s X-Men play rugby for their teammate Davey Jones who passed away from MND. This year for the 50th anniversary of the Dubai Rugby 7’s, which takes place from 5-7 December, they designed a novelty Monkey training jersey with O’Neills to raise much needed funds for the UK MND Association and My Name'5 Doddie Foundation.
Davey Jones was a dog, a Doha Dog. Doha Dogs is the veteran's team within the Doha rugby club in Qatar, and like many other dogs, Davey was part of a family of stray dogs (lads not living in Doha anymore) who tour regularly to many different parts of the world.
Davey unfortunately succumbed to MND in 2013. The speed of his deterioration and the harshness of the disease shocked his fellow dogs, especially Dale Ashford and Keith Townson who formed Jonesy X-Men team for the local 10's tournament in his memory.
In 2013, they entered the Dubai Rugby 7's for the first time raising over £3,000 for the J9 Foundation, an MND charity set up by the late Springbok scrumhalf Joost van der Westhuizen. For the last 6 years, they have focused their fundraising efforts on the UK MND Association while ensuring there is always a fun element: “We play in the international veterans section and the excitement of the players to potentially face ex-internationals at this latter stage in life, is a dream come true. It keeps the interest levels high along with the undeniable bond between all even those who have never met Davey.”
In 2017, Scottish Rugby International, Doddie Weir, publicly announced he had been diagnosed with MND. Jonesy’s X-Men had a personal connection to Doddie and decided to include My Name'5 Doddie Foundation in their fundraising efforts, raising £5,000 to date.
This year, for the 50th anniversary of the Dubai Rugby 7’s, Jonesy’s X-Men decided to launch a one-off novelty training jersey for general sale. They choose a Monkey design for a unique reason: “Due to our athletic dad bods, we thought the jerseys would raise attention and people would be attracted to them, in turn asking who we are, and hopefully donating!”
They play their first match on Friday 6 December against Joining Jack and they are hoping the publicity of the match will create more awareness for MND. With support messages from Adam Jones, Henry Paul, and Bryan Habana, as well as their social media getting lots of attention, their fundraising attempts are not going unnoticed.
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