Anthony Mills' Journey for MenB Awareness at Anfield

Anthony Mills stood outside Anfield with tired legs and a lighter heart.

Nine months after meningitis B tore his 18-year-old son Aaron from him, the father from Kidderminster says he finally feels “at peace” – not because the pain has faded, but because his boy’s name now travels further than his grief.

That journey has been both literal and brutal.

Over five days, family friend Shaun McEntee ran more than 100 miles, from Kidderminster Harriers’ Aggborough Stadium to Liverpool’s Anfield, turning every mile into a moving billboard for MenB awareness. Mills followed in a different way, stepping into lecture theatres and student unions along the route to talk about the illness that changed his life.

“The whole experience was just amazing. I feel a bit guilty because I enjoyed every single minute of it,” Mills admitted, the conflict between pride and loss written into every word.

He watched McEntee set off from Aggborough, watched him battle through the worst of the weather, and finally watched him arrive on Merseyside, shattered but unbroken. Between those points, the pair stopped at the University of Wolverhampton, Harper Adams University in Shropshire, Reaseheath College & University Centre in Nantwich and the University of Chester.

Inside those rooms, Mills discovered something that shocked him almost as much as his son’s diagnosis had: most of the students had never really heard of MenB.

Babies have been routinely vaccinated against meningitis B for more than a decade. Aaron’s age group missed that safety net. It is a gap Mills is now determined others will not fall through.

“I owe Shaun a lot, he’s done all this in Aaron’s memory and it’s been phenomenal,” he said. “Aaron was an incredible person and to just let him go like that… it just felt so wrong. I’ve really tried to get his legacy over the last nine months to what it should be because his potential was unlimited.”

The run gave that mission a platform and a shape. McEntee’s body took the hits. Mills did the talking.

At each stop, he laid out the reality of MenB – a fast-moving bacterial infection that can turn a healthy teenager into an intensive care patient in hours. He told Aaron’s story to strangers barely younger than his son. Some of them, he says, had no idea a vaccine was even available.

There were signs the message landed.

Speaking outside Anfield after crossing the finish line, McEntee could barely stand for long, but he knew why he had kept going.

“I’m exhausted, so tired, but it’s been so worth it. I feel like we’ve actually got the message across,” he said. “There were a couple of moments that in my head could have saved a couple of lives. Those people said they’d get the vaccine as a result of what we’ve done, which is obviously massively worth it.”

He had carried more than just his own weight. In his kit, all the way from Kidderminster to Liverpool, was a small cannister of Aaron’s ashes.

That, he said, is what pushed him through the darkest stretches.

“Thursday and Friday were really tough. It was probably the lowest I had been. The weather was against us and I was already exhausted and I knew I had lots to go.”

Every time his legs threatened to stop, he reached for that cannister. A reminder. A reason.

For Mills, watching his friend endure that for Aaron brought something he had not felt since January.

“I’m kind of at peace,” he said. “A lot of people know Aaron’s name, they know Aaron’s story, and it’s really helped me a lot. I feel like I can move forward a bit… I’ve healed a lot of wounds from it and it was incredible, the whole thing.”

The campaign is not over. He knows there is “still work to be done” on MenB awareness, especially among teenagers and young adults who sit outside the routine baby vaccination programme.

But now, as he looks back on the road from Aggborough to Anfield, he sees more than miles. He sees conversations in crowded corridors, young faces turning serious, and a few firm promises to book a jab.

For a father who once felt powerless against a disease that moved too fast, that is not just comfort. It is a new starting line.