A BBC correspondent has been reporting from war torn Ukraine – proudly wearing the jacket of his son’s football team, in a sweet tribute to his children back home.
Jonah Fisher, 45, donned the Ty Celyn Junior Football Club coat as a nod to his 11-year-old son Max during a live broadcast from the warzone in Lviv on BBC Breakfast.
The journalist – who also coaches his son’s under-11s youth football team in Cardiff in his spare time – wanted to do something subtle to let his kids know he was thinking of them.
He said: ‘It’s nice for them to see something which reminds them that we’re connected while I’m out here.
‘I can’t exactly go on telly and talk about a bomb that’s just landed at Lviv Airport and then do a shout out to my kids.
Jonah Fisher, 45, donned the Ty Celyn Junior Football Club coat while reporting from the warzone in Lviv, Ukraine, in a silent shout out to his family in Wales. Credit: BBC
‘It’s sort of a way of me giving a little nod to them to let them know I’m thinking of them.’
Jonah has been reporting from Ukraine for the last week and has sported the football kit several times to keep his children’s spirits up.
But it’s not just his children Max, 11, and Chloe, nine, who enjoy seeing him wearing the merchandise on TV.
The other coaches and parents at Ty Celyn FC, which has teams from aged under 7s to under 15s, have been regularly switching on the news to catch a glimpse of the BBC reporter sporting the team’s logo.
Jonah said: ‘I’m on a WhatsApp group with the parents of all the kids on the team and they have a little thing where they spot me on TV wearing the kit and send me a picture.
‘The club secretary likes messaging me and telling me there’s been a massive surge in the number of website clicks when I’ve been on TV.
‘He sent me a spreadsheet the other day where it went up by like 350 per cent when I’ve been on the news.
‘We’re expecting big crowds at the next game.’
According to Ty Celyn club secretary, Chris Lewis, the team was on the verge of folding before Jonah joined as a coach.
He praised the BBC presenter for his continued enthusiasm – even while reporting from the frontline in Ukraine.
Chris added: ‘It’s bizarre because we’re just a local grassroots football team run by parents so we’re not used to this kind of publicity.
‘I run our website and we tend to get between three and five visitors per day if we’re lucky – now suddenly I’m getting notifications saying we’ve had 200 visitors.
‘Jonah has injected a whole load of enthusiasm into the team and we really appreciate everything he’s done.
‘But at the end of the day, the circumstances in Ukraine are horrendous and we just want him to be safe.’
The 45-year-old BBC reporter lived with his family in Kyiv for four years while Jonah acted as the BBC’s Ukrainian correspondent. Pictured: Jonah with his son Max, 11, his wife and his daughter Chloe, nine – Credit: Jonah Fisher/Ferrari Press Agency
The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces has been particularly frightening for Jonah’s young children – not simply because their dad is reporting from the frontline but because they called Ukraine home for a significant period of their young lives.
The family lived in the capital city Kyiv for four years while Jonah acted as the BBC’s Ukrainian correspondent.
They moved back to the UK in November last year, resettling in Wales.
But the war has taken its toll on Max and Chloe who have seen many of their friends displaced, and some of the places they spent their childhood destroyed, due to the conflict.
Jonah added: ‘My children were in school here in Kyiv until the very end of last year so they’ve followed what’s been happening really closely – much more than you’d expect little kids to.
‘Their friends have been scattered across Europe.
‘We used to come on holiday to Lviv and now it’s part of a war zone.
‘So for them, me coming back here was that much scarier.
‘It seems a bit more real than previous times when I’ve gone to conflict areas – where they had no real idea where it was.’
While Jonah is unsure how much longer he will be away from his wife and children, he intends to keep boosting morale by wearing the Ty Celyn jacket during live broadcasts.
He said: ‘It’s a bit of fun for everyone back home and we desperately need some light-hearted news at the moment.’
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