Emma Quaintance, centre-half at Plainmoor Ladies, forged a lasting friendship with Holly, who played at right back.
“It was football that brought us together,” she said. “Holly loved football and loved the team.”
Holly played for Plainmoor Ladies for about five years before she became ill in 2024 and died in May 2025.
Emma said: “What she went through was just heart-breaking.
“We really wanted to fulfil her last wish and it was also a place for us and her family and friends to come and reflect and remember and feel close to her – it doesn’t make anything better but it’s just a bit more comforting to have that place.”
The team along with family and friends started to raise money but, finding it difficult to raise the necessary £8,000, local builders and carpenters helped them to put a bench in place on the playing fields in June, on the basis the land is leased to the men’s football team.
Emma said: “Now that I know I’ve fulfilled one of her wishes, it’s just everything to me because she deserved everything.”
She said it was “not right” that “grieving family and friends” should have to raise such a sum of money for a commemorative bench.
The money raised has been used to pay for the bench with the remainder going towards another bench the family want to install in the Cockington area of the town.
