How 17 seconds of madness changed Seán Cox and family's lives forever
Seán Cox with wife Martina. Cox, aged 54, suffered major head trauma when he was struck in a random assault by a masked AS Roma supporter outside Liverpool’s stadium in April 2018 prior to a Champions League semi-final.
- With Hope in Your Heart: The Seán Cox Story
- Martina Cox, with Susan Keogh
- Gill Books, PB: €16.99
- Review: Majella Flynn
AN unprovoked, 17-second attack outside Anfield stadium utterly changed the lives of Liverpool FC fan Seán Cox, his wife Martina, and their three children.
In With Hope in Your Heart: The Seán Cox Story, Martina tells the story of their lives from the day in April 2018 that her husband Seán “had taken his little overnight bag, kissed me on the head and headed for Dublin Airport to get his early morning flight” to watch his beloved Liverpool FC play to the day that Seán, having suffered a severe brain injury in the brutal attack, returned to his family home almost two years later.
On April 24, 2018, Seán Cox and his brother Marty were walking up Walton Breck Road outside Anfield stadium on their way to see Liverpool play AS Roma in the Champions League semi-final when they were surrounded by up to 60 Roma fans, not ordinary fans but “organised hooligans” wearing balaclavas who had arrived in Liverpool to cause trouble, says Martina. In a gratuitous attack, Seán received a blow to the side of his head: “17 seconds was all it took to change a life forever.”
At home in Dunboyne, Co Meath, Martina received the awful news: “This was a nightmare, and I was wide awake.” Arriving in The Walton Centre in Liverpool, she was told that Seán had made it through surgery to relieve pressure on his brain and was in an induced coma in the intensive care unit. Nothing could have prepared her for seeing Seán for the first time after the attack, she says. “This was a different Seán. A Seán who had returned badly injured from a war zone... I stared at my once happy and healthy husband now helpless in this bed in intensive care.”
Three Italian men were charged in connection with the chaos outside Anfield stadium in April 2018. Filippo Lombardi and Daniele Sciusco were jailed for violent disorder, and Simone Mastrelli was jailed for unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on Seán, receiving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Following the attack, Mastrelli had removed his balaclava, changed his clothes, and gone into the stadium to watch the match, and the next day, had flown back home to Italy. “I knew as long as I lived, I would never ever be able to get my head around that level of cruelty,” says Martina.
Just 14 months after the sentencing of Mastrelli, Martina received news that all three men had been released from prison. “I was devastated. I had always felt the sentences that were handed down to the three Italian men did not represent justice for Seán, but to think that they had been released before they had even completed those sentences was too much.”
The injuries to Seán were such that his care journey took him to a number of facilities in both England and Ireland. After spending over four weeks in The Walton Centre immediately after the attack, he was moved to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for almost five months and was then transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. About three weeks into his stay at Beaumont, Martina says, “he grabbed my hand back. He recognised my voice. He knew me. He wanted to hold my hand. These were small but extremely significant milestones.”
Martina describes the wonderful support that the family received, both from the local community in which she and Seán had been deeply involved and from people all over the world, including Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp. In a letter to Martina, he wrote: “In a few days, Liverpool could become champions of Europe. It would be a magnificent achievement and one that everyone at the club and everyone who supports us would regard as something truly momentous. And yet at the same time I would trade any of the glory that could come our way for Sean to get back to full health and to be back at home with you and all of his loved ones.”
Financial support has been provided through the Seán Cox Rehabilitation Trust, which was set up to help to meet the millions of euro in costs of full-time medical care for Seán, who finds daily tasks challenging and is unlikely to walk again.
Among a number of fundraising initiatives was a match held on April 12, 2019, between a Liverpool legends team led by Kenny Dalglish and an Ireland side managed by Mick McCarthy. As well as 27,000 people buying tickets in support of Seán's rehab, the match was a milestone for Seán in that it was his first time out of hospital in almost a year. He saw Martina and their three children, Jack, Shauna, and Emma, going onto the pitch with President Michael D Higgins before kickoff, and “Seán's face was a sight to behold when he saw King Kenny”.
Seven months later, Seán returned to Anfield for the first time after the attack, where he met Jürgen Klopp and his footballing heroes. “Seeing Seán at Anfield was definitely one of the high points for all of us,” says Klopp in the foreword to the book. For Martina and the children, it was also a standout moment: “It was special, and not because of where we were, or the special treatment, or the footballing stars. It was because Seán was so happy.” Comedian John Bishop organised another fundraiser, one in which he was joined on the stage of Dublin's 3Arena by Michael McIntyre, Dara Ó Briain, Deirdre O'Kane, Des Bishop, Jason Byrne, Joanne McNally, and Tommy Tiernan. More than 8,000 people bought tickets for the show.
“I hadn't seen Seán laugh this much since the attack,” says Martina. “I had to fight back the tears as I watched his face light up beside me.” It was, she says, a boost for Seán for the last part of his journey before returning home.
The event raised €465,000 for the Seán Cox Rehabilitation Trust, bringing the total raised over the previous 18 months to €2.7m. “I almost couldn't get my head around the generosity we had been shown. I was so grateful to every single person who had played their part in making an awful situation so much better than it might have been for Seán and for us as a family.”
Seán's journey of recovery had taken him and his family from The Walton Centre in Liverpool to Beaumont Hospital and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin, to Steps in Sheffield, and then to Marymount Care Centre in Lucan. In March this year, almost two years after tragedy had struck, Seán was able to return to his family and his “forever home” — and just ahead of the Covid-19 lockdown.
This book, written with Susan Keogh, tells the story of how the lives of one man and his family were changed utterly by one senseless act, and how they rose to the challenges with hope and strength. Moreover, as Klopp writes in the foreword: “Having been fortunate enough to spend some time with Seán and his family, I can say without any doubt that this book is a love story.”
