It seems so unnecessary for the Royal British Legion to ban a Millwall fan from selling his own homemade poppies – surely if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?
Last year alone, HGV driver Sean McCarthy raised £65,000 for the charity, which is a phenomenal amount of money. Imagine if every poppy seller raised that much, or the £278,000 that Sean has raised in total.
But now, for some reason, he has been informed that he’s no longer allowed to use his popular homemade poppies – presumably because even charities these days have to guard their corporate image, to the extent that they cannot tolerate any innovation or creativity and lose all flexibility.
We asked the Legion why they had stopped Sean from making his own badges and we received an evasive response, saying that he was a ‘valued collector’ who ‘continues to collect for us’.
Sadly though, Sean told us: ‘It’s probably going to be my last year, they’ve taken the heart out of it’. That’s an understandable human reaction – so in one fell swoop the Legion have demotivated one of their finest champions, to the extent that he’ll give it all up. What a waste.