“How do we cope? That’s all we can try and do, cope.”
It is a sweltering hot afternoon, and Tom and Claire Bennett are sitting around their garden table. Their two dogs wander in and out of the house. There is a slight breeze and a distant lawnmower hum. It feels like a normal weekday afternoon but that could not be further from the truth. On March 6, their lives changed forever.
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It was the day they lost their youngest son and budding footballer, Luke, aged 17. He was electrocuted while holding a metal pole in a tragic accident when out playing football with friends.
It is three months since the worst day of their lives.
“It is just devastation. Our life has just been ripped apart,” says Tom, a former professional footballer with Wolverhampton Wanderers, Stockport County and Walsall. “It is the worst thing that can happen but something we are just going to have to deal with. You are never going to get over it.”
Claire continues: “Our lives will never be the same. It was an avoidable accident that should never have happened. He only went to play football in a place you would never think was dangerous. He didn’t go to play on a railway line, he went to play on a field. That is the bit that is so unbelievable.”
They try to deal with their grief in different ways. Claire finds looking at pictures and watching videos comforting. She has found yoga, which Luke used to attend with her, and breathing classes helpful to try and ease the stress and anxiety.
Tom is the opposite. “I am only now just starting to look at photographs and not bursting out crying,” he says.
“It is every day. It makes it harder. He wasn’t a soldier, doing a job that put him in harm’s way. It should never happen that you lose a child like that.”
It is the type of afternoon when Luke, who had been impressing with AFC Fylde after being released by Burnley, would usually be out in the garden filming himself doing skills that he would upload to TikTok.
“He would be out in the garden for hours. He would put his phone on the ground and practise. His brother always said Luke made it look easy, but he couldn’t do it,” says Tom. “He did things even I couldn’t do.”
His brother, Dylan, is upstairs completing a university exam while we talk. He was two years older than Luke and the pair were close. He did not lose a brother, but a best friend too.
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His parents have tried to support him as best they can, so have his friends.
“They bounced off each other. Luke, everything was loud and spontaneous whereas Dylan was more the brains with common sense. There was no real competition, they were just good pals,” says Claire.
“Dylan’s friends got on well with Luke as well. They used to say he is the same as Dylan but he is fitter and better looking. Dylan would just laugh.”
They would play football together regularly. Tom recalls the story of the pair cracking a tile with the ball. Instead of telling their parents, they went to the shop and bought glue to try and put it back together.
It is moments like that the family will forever cherish. They will remain special.
“The two of them used to batter the ball into the goal at the bottom of the garden. Luke would batter it against the house and windows, we had to get a new patio door,” continues Tom. “I would sit there laughing and Claire would be going mad.”
The house is a lot quieter now.
“It didn’t used to be but, when there is just the three of us and Dylan is upstairs, it is,” says Tom.
Initially, it was tough to watch any football. Things are not getting easier, but slightly more bearable. Tom is an under-16 coach at Blackburn Rovers, working there for the past 15 years. He has struggled when he has returned.
“It is still all very raw,” he says. “It is difficult because they are pretty much the same age. It will get easier; I know it because I know where we are now compared to where we were a month ago.”
Tom refers to a conversation he was having while watching Bonnie, one of their dogs, playing. The reality of life means she will pass away, it will be terrible, but you can get another dog, which can help with the healing.
You cannot replace a son.
“Even if your husband or your wife dies, further down the line you might meet somebody else. For us, it is the end of the line,” says Claire.
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Slowly, but surely, they are coming to terms with the unthinkable.
“You can shout and argue and be angry at the world because that’s what you want to be,” says Tom. “You see people laughing and think, ‘Why are you laughing?’. You can’t let that affect you, you have to understand that it is the world moving on, it doesn’t stop.
“You are down here but you have to try and get up there because otherwise, your life is over.”
“I always said to him that he lived in Luke-land,” says Claire.
At around 11pm, Luke would emerge from the front door of the family’s home in Chorley to take the family’s two dogs Bonnie, a beagle, and Polo, a poodle, on a walk.
The former has been part of the family for nine years and the latter is a young pup who his grandma was originally going to name Pippin. Luke did not like that name, so instead, it was named Polo after the polar bear teddy that went everywhere with him as a youngster.
“He would set off in his dressing gown and flip flops with Bonnie on the lead and Polo tucked inside his dressing gown, carrying it. Hood up. Earbuds in. Not a care in the world,” says Claire.
“One minute he would be going to me, ‘Mum, do you want to see my wings?’ (his muscles) after he’d been doing the weights and giving it the big one, to then having a poodle inside his dressing gown.”
His mother describes him as “perfect”. He was a handsome, popular boy with a kind heart, full of fun and energy. Dedicated and driven, his desire was to be a professional footballer.
“He was not ordinary, there was nothing ordinary about him,” says Tom. “Everything he did was larger than life. He was such a positive thinker.”
He was quirky. Claire owns a cream jacket that Luke would put on to lounge about the house wearing nothing else but his boxer shorts. There is a chuckle as Claire remembers him wearing it opening his presents on Christmas Day with a dog on his lap.
There was his cheeky streak too. He would walk past clothes he had left on the floor when his mum asked him to pick them up before videoing Claire when she was telling him off, as well as constantly playing tricks.
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“If I got mad at him, he would just ask me why I was so angry, and then you couldn’t stay angry at him. Even his teachers said the same. All he would do is bring out his smile and you would have to give in,” she says.
He had a fiery temper when he was younger, which disappeared over the years. Anything in his hand would get thrown. A stone went through the patio door, his friend Ella who lives over the road has a scar from a Spider-Man toy hitting her. “She’s quite happy she has these scars now because it is one way to remember him,” says Claire.
He was smart, “cleverer than I thought”, says Claire, as she never saw him do homework. He achieved mostly As and Bs in his GCSEs at Holy Cross School in Chorley. The school have dedicated a Luke Bennett Memorial Trophy, which will be awarded to one student from the PE department each year. “It is nice to keep his memory alive,” says Tom.
Two of his former teachers, Mr Callander and Miss Wallace are also organising a memorial match. It was with the latter he performed at the school’s annual Holy Cross Does Strictly show. His teacher was not keen but Luke’s persistence, mainly from putting post-it notes on Mr Callander’s computer every day to keep asking her, won out.
They performed the dance from Pulp Fiction, with Luke channelling his inner John Travolta with a ponytail wig.
What became clear was Luke was naturally good at everything. He had played tennis when he was younger. During a training session, they were doing a standing long jump. Luke jumped so far, the coach asked him to do it again in astonishment.
It was not just in sport though. Claire is a hairdresser and during the first lockdown, Luke asked her to teach him. She showed him the basics and he watched video after video on YouTube to learn.
“At the start, I would be there to finish it off and fix it but eventually he would cut his friends’ hair,” says Claire. “He would have his chair set up in the garden and four of them were queuing up.
“At Fylde, academy manager Chris Ganner went into the dressing room once and Luke was sat in there cutting his team-mates’ hair. He got to the point where he was excellent.”
He had piano lessons for several years but did not particularly enjoy it. However, he was so talented his teacher would plead with him to continue. Eventually, Luke got his way. “We got in the car, and he turned to me and said, ‘Mum, I don’t know how you didn’t see how unhappy I was’, as if I was terrorising him into doing it,” Claire says with a smile.
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It was around four years later when Luke was at one of his friends’ houses. Their mum was beginning to learn how to play the piano and struggling. Luke sat with her for four hours and taught her the basics.
“She gave me a glass ornament that sat on her piano as a wee memory of him because she will never forget that,” says Claire.
“A lot of his friends have said that Luke has helped them in one way or another. You don’t know this until now. He was just that type of boy.
“I still think he is going to walk around the corner or come down the stairs. He was just starting his life.
“Even things like making him his birthday cake every year or starting driving lessons. I had to text the man what had happened. He had everything ahead of him and you just feel like you have been robbed.”
Tom adds: “It was nice to know that he was the same boy he was here, away from us.”
It was a pleasant Saturday evening on March 6. Claire was in the garden putting her gardening tools away as Tom had set off to pick up a Chinese takeaway before going to pick up Luke on his way back.
It was 6:11pm when Claire’s phone rang. She will never forget it.
“It was one of Luke’s friend’s mums and she said there had been an accident,” says Claire. “She said she didn’t want to alarm me but Luke and two of his friends had been in an accident and Luke was unconscious.”
The parents of one of Luke’s friends picked Claire up and they headed straight to Euxton Villa Football Club. When she arrived, Tom was already there.
“I immediately thought there was a lot of police, this is not good, but I was not expecting what I was going to be faced with. Then Tom told me they were doing CPR.
“I was thinking he is fit, he is strong, and I kept telling myself he will be fine but… they couldn’t get his heart to start.”
It was a freak accident. It still feels surreal to Claire. Tom has stepped away from the conversation for a moment, still struggling to hear about the events of the day.
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Luke had left the house at half-past two that afternoon, with Tom dropping him off. Nobody could have imagined that it would be his final goodbyes.
“You never think they are not going to come back,” she says. “You can never imagine something like this. I keep going back to the fact he was on a football field, not a railway line. I can’t believe it, I just can’t.
“Standing there that evening you think, ‘What am I doing here?’. He should be in the house, in his room, he shouldn’t be on this field.”
Time has appeared to stand still since. There is a numbness, a pain so indescribable.
“It is your worst nightmare. You just have to try and get through each day,” says Claire.
The funeral was held on March 15 at St Joseph’s Church. With COVID-19 restrictions, only 30 people were allowed with others paying their respects outside.
“My sister helped me massively with everything, I couldn’t have done it,” says Claire. “In one way I was quite glad it was only 30 because it was just us. I would never have wanted a big all-singing, all-dancing service because it should never have happened.”
The support the family has received has been crucial from friends and family. It is what has helped get them through. Luke had a strong group of school friends and some have visited since.
“His school friends have been lovely. It helps them because they feel a connection to Luke. They will be scarred for life, but they are alive,” says Claire.
“Having people around helps because you have a different voice,” Tom adds. “If you don’t have that support, then you put yourself in a really bad place.”
There were always footballs at the back of the family’s garden but it was not until the age of 12 that Luke’s interest in football began to grow. He joined Sunday league side Brinscall Village Juniors and fell in love with the game.
“I believe you have to love what you are doing to be really good at it,” says Tom, who never forced football on his children. “He was a fast learner, so he was always catching up because he started so late but he developed quickly.
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“Me and Dylan went to watch him once and he picked the ball up around the halfway line, beat three of four lads and then thumped it into the top corner. We looked at each other, and you just think, ‘That was quite good wasn’t it?’.”
His father describes him as impatient at wanting to get to the next level. He would pester his dad about joining Blackburn.
“He didn’t really understand what he needed to do,” says Tom. “It is not a case of, ‘Hello Mr Academy, can I come along?’. You have to be good enough, if he had gone in too early it would have knocked him back.”
As he approached 15, he was beginning to show he was at the required level, and he joined Blackburn’s development squad before progressing to the elite squad.
“He was doing all right,” says Tom. “It was difficult for him because technically he had only been playing for two years so everyone was so far ahead of him but he just got on with it and kept picking things up but not quite quick enough.”
Blackburn let him go but a trial with Burnley followed and he was signed within a month.
“He was so happy,” reflects Tom. “It was the happiest thing because he was at an academy and that’s all he wanted. A Premier League club, great facilities.”
But it did not work out as planned. His parents saw Luke’s workload rise as he was asked to come in on day-release from school. With training piled on top of schoolwork and a couple of injuries, they noticed a dip in his performances.
“There was a point where I thought he needed to come out of it a little bit,” says Tom. “He didn’t seem as happy as he was.
“From a coach’s perspective I could see him coming through the difficult patch but whether that was going to be enough… it was always going to be next season for Luke but he wasn’t given the chance which was fine. That’s the nature of the beast.”
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Burnley released him but he picked himself up and went again. There was a three-month trial at Preston North End before he found a new home at AFC Fylde.
He was beginning to kick on for the under-18 side. He was quick, 6ft and developing physically, constantly in the gym. “Lukey B” was loved in the dressing room.
“The penny had dropped and he was starting to blossom,” says Tom. “You could see he was happy when he was playing, making an impact in every game. He was just starting to be something, me and Claire could see he was in a really good place.”
It was a historic season for the under-18 side who advanced to the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup. There were tears shed by team-mates following a 3-2 victory over Cambridge in the third round 11 days after the tragedy. It set up a tie against Chelsea.
“He would have just wanted to be on the bus. It would not have mattered if he played. That is what he wanted to do. Chelsea did a lovely shirt for him,” says Tom.
“He would have loved that. He would have thought he had made it. I just think… Luke has made it in a different way,” says Claire tailing off.
A really emotional tribute for Luke Bennett prior to kick off as Academy manager, Chris Ganner, is handed a framed ‘Bennett 11’ shirt from Chelsea.
I’m sure you will be smiling down at the lads today, Luke🤍 pic.twitter.com/mJ6PY88cxo
— AFC Fylde (@AFCFylde) April 2, 2021
The shirt Fylde presented the family in his memory, along with a remembrance book that included “lovely” messages from all his team-mates, are in his room. They have also announced that in pre-season the first team will take on Blackburn in a pre-season friendly to celebrate the life of the teenager.
“He was so dedicated to being a footballer,” says Tom. “He just wanted to be paid to play.
“You don’t know where it would have taken him. There would have been a lot of ups and downs to come but we would’ve liked to have seen that come to its conclusion.”
(Top photo: AFC Fylde)
