Football Shirt Culture.com

Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United are joining forces this Sunday to support the city's Children's Hospital by emblazoning its logo on their shirts for the Steel City derby at Hillsborough.

The hospital is part of Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust which is one of only four dedicated children's hospital trusts in the UK providing integrated, highly specialist healthcare for children and young people.

And following the gesture by Blade's official club sponsor, the Malta Tourism Authority and Wednesday continuing to gift their shirt sponsorship to the hospital - a partnership that has already generated over £80,000 in two seasons - both teams will wear the logo in a unique show of solidarity.

"To have both Sheffield teams playing with our logo on their shirts gives me an immense feeling of pride," said David Vernon-Edwards, Director of The Children's Hospital Charity.

"We are fortunate to have one of the leading children's hospital's in the country here in Sheffield and although there will be inevitable rivalry on Derby day I hope supporters take the opportunity to celebrate how fortunate we are to have such a fantastic facility on our doorstep.

"For the charity and the hospital this game is a fitting finale to what has been an exciting season, one in which the game of football has brought heightened awareness of our cause, turned supporters into fundraisers and ultimately brought great benefits to our young patients and their families."

On the forefront of paediatric care, The Children's Hospital offers world-class facilities and expertise, with the Trust's Paediatric Limb Reconstruction Service and Metabolic Bone team attracting referrals from across the UK and Europe.

The Trust is also a specialist centre for children with neurological conditions and is a highly respected world leader and the European training centre for paediatric gastroenterology, pioneering some of the latest techniques and procedures.

The Trust's first-class facilities include a pioneering High Definition Theatre of the Future, a recently completed purpose built High Dependency Unit for the hospital's most seriously ill patients and a paediatric clinical research facility, dedicated to alleviating childhood illness and diseases.

Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United Football Clubs will both stride out for the 'Steel City' derby with The Children's Hospital, Sheffield emblazoned on their shirts this weekend (18 April 2010), in a unique move of solidarity to show their admiration for the hospital.

On Tuesday, both Wednesday's Darren Purse and United's Gary Speed visited the Children's Hospital to unveil the shirts to children and staff from the hospital - plus, both sides have arranged for their squads to sign their derby shirts which will be auctioned-off after the game.