Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday football clubs players will wear logos of The Children's Hospital, Sheffield, on their shirts as they take part in the steel city derby today, an initiative by the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), Sheffield United sponsors.

Alex Incorvaja, MTA director, UK and Ireland, said: "As the official club sponsor of the Blades, we continue to look at ways of supporting the local community in Sheffield. We hope that handing over our shirt branding for one of the most high profile occasions on the Football League calendar will contribute to giving this children's hospital the recognition and support they deserve."

This follows Sheffield Wednesday's pioneering move in 2009 to gift their shirt sponsorship to the hospital and its charity for two seasons (2009-2010 and 2010-2011) - a partnership that has already generated over £80,000 for The Children's Hospital Charity.

Last Tuesday, United's Gary Speed and Wednesday's Darren Purse visited The Children's Hospital to unveil the shirts to children and staff from the hospital. Both clubs are keen to show a unified front when it comes to the hospital and express their pride, support and gratitude to a Sheffield institution that has been supporting their fans and their families for over 100 years.

The Children's 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. Each year, the trust sees 180,000 appointments from across the country.

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

Sheffield United's group executive director, Mike Farnan, said: "We would like to acknowledge what a fantastic gesture this is from the Malta Tourism Authority. United are very pleased to be able to contribute to such an excellent cause."

Sheffield Wednesday chairman, Lee Strafford, said: "The Steel City derby is one of the biggest dates in our sporting calendar and it is fantastic that both clubs in the city are showing their support for The Children's Hospital in this way."

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.