FOOTBALLERS and friends are rallying round a boy battling a rare illness.

People have stepped forward to offer themselves as bone marrow matches, and sent surprise gifts, since hearing of Taylor Carroll, 12, who has aplastic anaemia - bone marrow failure.

The Carroll family, of Rye Hills, Halstead, have been overwhlemed by offers of help from Halstead Town Football Club, whose first team players volunteered to be tested as a bone marrow match for the Ramsey College pupil.

Taylor, a former Richard de Clare School pupil, whose illness causes tiredness, rashes and severe fast-developing bruises from little pressure, will start chemotherapy in a fortnight and may have to spend up to four months in Great Ormond Street Hospital.