MIDDLESBROUGH will wear a one-off all-white shirt for this weekend's visit of Coventry City in a bid to highlight the dangers of knife crime - and fans are being urged to play their part at the Riverside.

The kit, shown above, will be worn and used to raise funds for the Chris Cave Foundation, a local charity which supports victims of violent crime, and for the MFC Foundation's Kicks Scheme.

In a twelve month period from August last year to this July, a third of all knife crimes in Cleveland involved young people aged 24 and under and 57% of all serious violence involved a knife or bladed weapon.

In that time period, 186 people aged 18 to 24 were victims of a knife crime in the Cleveland Police area and 63 young people were caught in possession of a bladed weapon.

Boro are keen to play a leading role in highlighting the dangers of knife crime and are urging supporters to leave their red shirts and scarves at home this Saturday on what will be a No More Red day at the Riverside.

Teessiders Hayden Hackney and Dael Fry attended an MFC Foundation Kicks session at Teesside University yesterday alongside members of the Chris Cave Foundation and Cleveland Police.

Hackney said: "For myself and Dael, it's particularly important because we're from the area and as a club we want to do what we can to raise awareness of the issue here, the dangers of knife crime and the impact it has on lives.

"I didn't expect the rates [to be so high] and we'll do as much as we can to raise awareness and stop that."

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The white kit won't be available for supporters to buy but Saturday's match worn shirts will be auctioned off to funds for the charities involved.

Boro's players will also wear warm-up t-shirts supporting the Chris Cave Foundation.

The club will also deliver a powerful anti-knife crim poem, written by academy youngster Jacob Krishnan. The nine-year-old joins staff from both the men and women's team in reading the words, with the poem set to be aired on social media and shown in the stadium ahead of Saturday's game.

“This is a very serious issue affecting our community. We want to highlight this and make people aware of the dangers and the effects this has on the lives of people,” said MFC Head of Business Operations and Community Helena Bowman.

“We hope that changing our strip at the Riverside and by creating awareness of this problem and asking our fans to do the same and not wear their usual colours will have an impact on people and make them think twice.”

Theresa Cave, founder of the Chris Cave Foundation, said: "We work extremely hard educating young people on the issues around violent crime. We show the dangers, consequences and ripple effect of knife crime, gun crime exploitation and county lines.

“We are overjoyed to have been chosen by MFC to join their campaign against knife crime and to be supported through funds raised which will be an enormous help to our work.”