Players wore black armbands during Everton’s home match against Ipswich Town on Saturday, as part of a tribute to three-year-old Noah Woods, whose body was found after he went missing in Suffolk this week.
A photograph of the boy was shown on the big screen before the Premier League game in Liverpool and three minutes after kick-off both sets of supporters stood to applaud in memory of Noah.
The toddler, who was non-verbal, partially deaf and had been undergoing an assessment for autism, became separated from a relative after visiting a playground in Brantham on Tuesday afternoon, Suffolk police said.
About 1,300 members of the public joined a search which ended on Wednesday when police divers recovered a body from a nearby lake.
On Thursday, Noah’s father Rhys Woods paid tribute to his son in a message shared on a community Facebook group.
He wrote: “There are no words to describe the pain of this loss, we are all absolutely heartbroken, Noah was the sweetest and most innocent little boy, with nothing but love to give, and we are going to miss him so very much.”
Ipswich Town’s captain Dara O’Shea and goalkeeper Christian Walton were among a delegation from the Suffolk club who laid flowers at the playground where he went missing.
Town defender Leif Davis donated £2,000 to a fundraising appeal set up by Good Dads Club, a group of fathers in Colchester, Essex, to support Noah’s family. It had already received more than £100,000 in donations from more than 6,000 supporters by Saturday evening.
Suffolk constabulary said the child’s death was not being treated as suspicious but that the force still has a number of inquiries to complete before submitting a file to the coroner.
