Kai Widdrington honoured his famous football playing dad on home turf on Wednesday night, as the Strictly Come Dancing tour rolled into Newcastle.
When Kai joined Strictly as a pro in 2021, his second name sparked some curiousity amongst fans of the beautiful game and they didn’t need to do much digging to find out he was the son of footballer Tommy Widdrington, who was born on Tyneside in the early 70s.
While he didn’t ultimately follow dad Tommy, who has been in the Strictly studio to watch him before, onto the pitch, instead winning an array of dance titles, Kai himself is a keen football fan and earned himself plenty of appreciation from the Geordie crowd at the Utilita Arena when he held up a bit of paper with the words Toon Army on it before his first performance alongside Helen Skelton on Wednesday evening.
And then, after the newly formed partnership earned themselves a near perfect score of 29 out of 30 for their Quickstep, Helen and Kai both spoke about their families.
Helen mentioned that her mum and son Louis were in the audience, before Kai said: “It’s very special for me to be back here; my dad’s side of the family is all from Newcastle so it’s great to be back.”
While Kai’s dad Tommy never actually played for Newcastle, like another Geordie player, a certain Alan Shearer, he spent his early days at Southampton, having been scouted for the south coast club by Jack Nixon, the same man who took Shearer there.
And just like the Magpies a night earlier, Kai had a win to celebrate, after he and Helen topped the audience text vote to triumph on night one.
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