Rob Burrow’s poignant final messages for his children are too upsetting for wife Lindsey

Rugby league star Rob Burrow, who made nearly 500 appearances for the Leeds Rhinos, died earlier this month after a four-year journey with motor neurone disease (MND)

Rob Burrow’s battle with motor neurone disease has left behind a lasting legacy with the public, but he wanted to leave something even more special for his children.

His wife Lindsey has revealed he created messages for their three kids for the years ahead. Rugby league legend Rob died three weeks ago aged 41, and Lindsey has revealed she is still too upset to listen to the messages.

She was tearful as she talked about going through them one day. The notes for the youngsters – Macy, 11, Maya, eight, and five-year-old Jackson – are on the eye-gaze machine that Rob used after the disease took away his ability to speak.

In her first interview since Rob died, Lindsey, 41, said: “I know he has left messages on there for the children and, at the minute, it’s too raw to go and look through the machine.

“There are birthday messages on there and messages for the children in the future. There will come a day where I will have to do that and Rob will be with me and he’ll give me the strength to do that.” She added she is “incredibly proud” of what he achieved by raising awareness of MND as well as a huge amount of money to help fight it.

Speaking from home, Lindsey told BBC Breakfast host Sally Nugent: “He was an inspiration to so many. He was the face of the MND community. Despite the grief and the sadness, we have so much to be thankful for, for having him in our lives and making the world a better place to be.

“I’m proud to have been his wife for 17-and-a-half years and to have three beautiful children with Rob. I’ll do everything I can to make sure they’re brought up as Rob would want them to be – to be kind and caring and to appreciate the things in life. Rob was very much like that. [He was] very down to earth, never had an ego – such a lovely kind man.”

England and Great Britain star Rob retired in 2017 after 16 years with Leeds Rhinos. He was known as “the smallest player in Super League” as he was 5ft 5in and just over 10st.