Ukrainian refugee, 11, to be celebrated by team and fans at Gillingham FC

An 11-year-old Ukrainian refugee is set to be celebrated by the team and supporters at Gillingham Football Club during their clash with Fleetwood Town on Monday.

Daniel Lysak and his mother Yana fled their home near Lviv in western Ukraine and arrived in England on Friday April 8 to their UK sponsor’s house in Folkestone, Kent.

British host and Gillingham fan Malcolm Bell had initially hoped Daniel would be given a shout-out at the League One match but has now organised for Daniel to be introduced to the squad, given a tour of Priestfield Stadium and flank the team’s captain on the pitch.

“He’s overwhelmed, mega excited,” Mr Bell, 51, told the PA news agency.

“He understands everything is going to happen, but he can’t understand how it’s going to happen because he’s never experienced anything like it.

“It’s just a new world he’s experiencing and it’s just great to be part of that for him to be fair.”

Mr Bell said one of Daniel’s wishes upon arriving was to see a live football match.

He reached out on a local Gillingham supporters group on Facebook in the hope that the club’s announcer on match days would see it but did not expect his appeal to escalate the way it did.

“It was just to try and get that shout-out so that Daniel can hear his name during the game and actually be quite surprised,” Mr Bell explained.

“And it was from there that everybody picked up on it and wanted to support him – there’s people that bought Ukrainian flags, and (said) ‘We’re going to be flying them at the ground.’

“The fan base have been fantastic, (they have) bought shirts, training tops for Daniel – so many offers I could actually put a football team together from them.

“We’ve got Amazon vouchers, people have sent through money… One chap