‘NE14 a free shirt?’ – AFC Fylde pranksters invited to stadium and rewarded with kits and goodie bags

The young lads who made headlines for the prank they pulled on AFC Fylde’s stadium announcer have been identified… and rewarded.

Jak, Tom and Timo – who are all season ticket holders at Mill Farm – were the trio who pulled the classic ‘NE14 ABJ’ prank on Liam Brown, who was standing in as announcer during Tuesday night’s defeat of Ramsbottom United.

The three youngsters duped the man behind the microphone into asking for a Nissan Micra to be moved in the car park as it was blocking their dad’s car in an emergency.

Mr Brown took the all important detail – the vehicle’s registration – and read it out over the loudspeaker to all in attendance.

But it was not an emergency and the car doesn’t even exist, with the poor Mr Brown falling for a classic in the prank call genre.

The number plate of the imaginary car was ‘NE14 ABJ’, which, when spoken out loud character by character, reads… well, we’ll let you figure it out.

Fylde actually did manage to identify the trio, who, instead of being punished, were invited to Mill Farm on Wednesday evening.

They were there presented with Fylde shirts and goodie bags of club merchandise, with David Haythornthwaite, the chairman, wanting to reward them for putting a smile on the public’s face.

“It was a great bit of harmless fun that snuck through, and it put a smile on the face of tens of thousands of people today,” Haythornthwaite said.

“The least we could do was return the favour and kit them out with our home strip and a goodie bag.

“Hopefully this will be a memory that’ll stay with them forever as supporters!”