By Lisa Ramsden
A CHANCE encounter on a Toronto street led to a stranger giving a Teconnaught man and two of his sons tickets to a World Cup match.
Dad-of-four Cormac Carville is currently on holiday in Canada, visiting his in-laws, where his wife Catherine grew up. He was thrilled to be in the host city, soaking up the atmosphere.
Once he heard tickets were being sold for £2,000 each (over 3,800 Canadian Dollars), he very quickly realised the chances of getting to see any of the matches being hosted there were slimmer than slim.
Knowing he and his two eldest boys, Joshua (14) and six-year-old Finn, could still make memories at the Fan Zone and in the hotels, cafés and bars in the city, the trio made the 45-minute journey into the heart of Toronto on Friday.
They watched as thousands of excited fans flooded into the city and made their way to the Toronto Stadium, where Portugal were preparing to take on Croatia.
What happened next was, as Cormac put it, “the surrealist, craziest and most amazing experience”.
Joshua, who attends St Malachy’s High School in Castlewellan, managed, through a sea of football shirts, to spy someone he was certain was the YouTuber and kindness influencer, Zachery Derenioski.
Little did they know it was all being captured on video, with footage of what happened next now having been seen by millions on the star’s social media channels.
Joshua, hopeful he could manage to get a quick photo with the social media celebrity, approached and asked if that would be possible.
Dereniowski, who routinely reminds his followers that “kindness is cool,” and whose videos often involve him doing random acts of kindness for strangers, has amassed more than 30 million online followers.
Speaking from Toronto on Monday, and high on a wave of emotions following Friday’s events, Cormac said it was a “real pinch yourself moment”.
“Being a 14-year-old boy and loving TikTok, Joshua just wanted to get a photograph with him,” he explained.
“Not for one second did we ever think anything else was going to happen. We had seen him chatting to a Portuguese family but had no notion of what had already happened.”
The unsuspecting Carvilles did not realise that this family of four had, as a video later confirmed, been handed tickets to see their nation play – as well as a wad of banknotes.
“There was Joshua thinking he was lucky to get a photo with him, and then the next thing he looked straight at us and asked: ‘Do you want to come to the World Cup?’, and I didn’t know what to believe, it was so surreal. I almost fainted!”
Almost immediately, he became naturally wary, thinking it was some sort of prank.
But he realised his initial fears, that the generosity was too good to be true, were nothing to worry about.
In the full story read what happened next.
