Dave Jones and his Cardiff City stars led the way in setting the stage for Football for Heroes week.
All 72 Football League clubs will hold a home game dedicated to raising awareness and vital funds for Help for Heroes,an organisation formed to help servicemen and women who have been wounded in Britain's current conflicts.
Bluebirds boss Dave helped to launch the week with an appearance on TalkSport on Monday, and the team rallied round the Help for Heroes banner during training on Tuesday.
Cardiff's Football for Heroes game will be the Championship match at home to Middlesbrough on Saturday, March 6, and Dave said: "I'm an ambassador for Help for Heroes and a patron of a charity called Talking To Minds, which deals with the mental side of things rather than physical injuries.
"Help for Heroes is a fantastic cause. I'm a great supporter of our armed forces because I believe that they do a very important job for us. They keep our land safe and go to the aid of other countries who need us to help their cause.
"When we had the Welsh Guards here as our guests at Cardiff City Stadium last October, they were quite humble. But we are the ones who should be humble when you look at the job they do - they had just come home from Afghanistan.
"You are always going to get people who don't appreciate what the forces do, but I'm not bothered about them. I'm bothered about these guys who are coming back - and when I say guys I mean men or women - who have an injury or post-traumatic stress. They need all the help we can give them.
"I go to the United States quite a lot on holiday and everywhere you go - Sea World or Disney for instance - members of the American forces are always being applauded for what they do. We should be doing the same. I'm a staunch believer in this country's armed forces.
"When you hear of the horrific injuries that some of these guys have, and the mental stress they are going through, football shrinks into a tiny dot by comparison.
"People treat football as a matter of life and death, but these guys' lives really are at risk. We play for pride and results, but our servicemen and women put their lives on the line.
"Football is put into proper perspective compared to what our armed forces are doing for us - and they are doing it for us because they are there to protect us."
