BURNLEY’S table-topping clash with QPR was the match of the day in more ways than one for two loved-up Clarets.

Kirby Wilkinson, 39, of Sycamore Avenue, Burnley, had the shock of his life at half-time, during the Clarets 2-0 win, when the stadium announcer asked him to look at the big screen.

Sitting nervously two seats away, in the lower tier of the James Hargreaves stand, was his girlfriend of four years Leah Gidley, 34.

In front of 16,000 fans, the message flashed up on the screen in four stages, ‘Will’, ‘You’, ‘Marry’, ‘Me?’

“I had tried to organise the seats so I could sit next to him,” said Leah, “but, in the end, my 11-year-old daughter Taylor was sitting between us.

“When the message flashed up, Taylor just shouted ‘oh my God mum’.

“I think Kirby was shocked. It took about 10 minutes before he said ‘yes’. He couldn’t believe it.”

The couple have a three-year-old son, Keaton, together, as well as three children from previous relationships.

They were at Saturday’s match because Leah’s seven-year-old son, Cole John Terry, named after Chelsea players, was playing football at half-time on the Turf Moor pitch.

“About five minutes before half-time Kirby said he was going to go out for a cigarette at half-time and I started to panic. I had to tell him not to because he might miss Cole playing.

“It was all a bit last minute. I only decided to ask him at the match late in the week.

“We’d split up for a bit and got back together in August and things have been really good since then.”

The couple met at a Thai Boxing Club, and within a year Keaton was born.