Stoke City's Dean Holden tells of grief after daughter's death

Stoke City's assistant manager and his wife are raising awareness of meningitis and coping with grief after the death of their daughter.

Dean Holden and Danielle Nicholls' daughter Cici, 17 months, died after she contracted meningococcal septicaemia while they were on holiday in Lanzarote in May 2012.

The couple are ambassadors for the Meningitis Now charity.

They said they had to find many ways to deal with their devastating loss.

Mrs Nicholls said they had struggled to talk about their experience after their family holiday turned into a "living nightmare".

She said Cici had been "not herself" when they arrived at their villa and had a slightly raised temperature in the night.

In the morning, she said, she was making a "whimper" noise and they took her to a clinic, where plans were made to airlifted her to an intensive care unit, but she died within two hours.

Mr Holden said the couple, who have four other children, have gone through a number of treatments to deal with their loss.

"Literally overnight you change as a person," he said.

"Ten years on, we're still together, and we laugh about things and we celebrate her."

"Every day is a new day and you've got to do the work every day, mental health wise," Mrs Nicholls said.

"You learn to live with the hole that is inside your heart, you learn to live with this empty feeling.

"Part of that is celebrating the person.

"We have always been able to talk about Cici, but it was just the day that we couldn't talk about because of the trauma."

Mr Holden was a defender at Bolton, Oldham and Peterborough among other clubs.

He was assistant boss at Oldham and Walsall in addition to Bristol City before taking over as manager on an initial interim basis in July 2020, and joined Stoke in April 2021.

Mrs Nicholls is a presenter and is known for her time on CITV.

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