IT’S A YES ON GUIDE DOG FOR THOMAS

FORMER England footballer Dave Thomas, who as reported in Wednesday’s Sportsmail has severe glaucoma and has been registered blind since 2008, learned yesterday that he is to get a guide dog. ‘It’s the best Christmas present I could possibly have,’ said Thomas. ‘I have central vision but hardly any peripheral vision, and this will give me the confidence to do things independently that at the moment I rely on my wife for. ‘I was told not to build my hopes up because these dogs are very precious, but this is just unbelievable news.’ Thomas was assessed for two hours by the Guide Dogs Association. ‘There were three of us,’ he said. ‘This nice woman from Guide Dogs called Rachel, myself and my wife Brenda. We were all in tears when Rachel said she was putting my name forward for a dog.’ The 65-year-old former Everton and QPR winger, who played eight times for England in the mid-Seventies, has started a campaign to raise funds for the charity, which needs £50,000 per dog from birth to retirement. He hopes to get signed shirts from every Premier League and Championship club and hand on the proceeds raised by auctioning them. So far he has shirts from Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Newcastle, Sunderland, QPR, Burnley, Middlesbrough and Blackburn. The PFA have donated an England shirt. ‘And apparently there’s one in the post from Chelsea,’ he said. ‘Terry Venables, who was a team-mate of mine at QPR, sorted one within a couple of hours. Gerry Francis, is getting one from West Brom.’ Thomas doesn’t know how long it will be before he has his guide dog. ‘But just to know that I’m getting one is enough for now,’ he said. ‘It will change my life.’

England winger will find out today if he gets a guide dog