ONE of Accrington's most famous sons rock star Jon Anderson has sent a message of support to Stanley's bid for promotion to the Football League.

The lead singer of Yes, one of the original supergroups of the 1970s, said as a child, all he wanted to do was to play for his home town team.

Growing up in the 1950s, he sold match programmes in Avenue Parade, was a mascot and a ball boy.

So he leapt at the chance to support the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's "We're Backing Stanley" campaign, calling on the whole town to get behind the Reds as they push for promotion.

Speaking from his home in California the 61-year-old singer recounted a song he sang as a schoolboy: "On Stanley, on lads, on Stanley on, we'll never quit yet, until we get that ball into the net, and so it's on Stanley on lads, we'll fight until we've won, we'll never ever la la la la..so it's on Stanley on'. I've forgotten the rest of the song.

"I used to sell programmes tuppence each at the bottom of Avenue Parade in 1952 or 1953.

"Believe it or not I was the mascot for the season 1954/5.

"I skipped school, travelled with the lads in the coach everywhere, cleaned the boots, ball boy, you name it I would be there, all in another lifetime.

"I just wanted to play for the team, nothing else mattered.

"Then they got kicked out of the league it was the worst day of my life until last year when they were on Fox Channel here in California.

"It was unbelievable, my world became wonderful again, amazing!

"I rang up everyone I knew in the world, most of them thought I was crazy.

"But Accrington Stanley, as you know, was one of the first teams in the whole world and it would be amazing if they got into the league and on to glory."

Jon started his music career playing in a band called The Warriors, with his brother Tony.

From there he teamed up with bassist Chris Squire to form the group Yes.

In spite of various line-up changes and legal wranglings, the band remain one of the biggest groups in the world.

In 2004 they celebrated their 35th anniversary with a sell-out tour on both sides of the Atlantic.