‘Lads' birthday trip' ended in tragedy for football fan dad

He died in hospital 14 months after suffering head injury in Benidorm

- NEAL KEELING

IT was the ultimate “lads’ trip”. Thirty friends from Manchester spending a week in Benidorm to mark a pal’s 50th birthday and watching the 2018 World Cup.

They arrived on Thursday, June 21 with high hopes for Gareth Southgate’s England who had already won their first game three days earlier, defeating Tunisia 2-1.

The next day Mike Rydings, a builder grandad-of-four from Wythenshawe and the rest of the party went into town, visiting venues on Avenue de Mallorca - a strip of bars and clubs.

A life-long Manchester United fan, Mike and some of the group visited the Stretford End sports bar. By the time he moved on to the Hippodrome bar after midnight he was accompanied by just one other from the party as the others went back to their apartments.

It was there that in a second his life would change forever and ultimately Greater Manchester Police would be left with an unsolved murder investigation.

He had an argument with a man from another group. It escalated outside the bar and he suffered a head injury from which he would never recover - dying over a year later aged 48.

Mike’s sister, Nikki Howard, told the Manchester Evening News: “Mike spent 13 months in Salford Royal Hospital on the Critical Care Unit where he was unable to speak or move.