Woman campaigns for Take That star Gary Barlow to sing at her birthday

Sam Watkin, a Take That fan since her twenties, has posted more than 7,000 tweets and put up posters around the town to support her cause.

Her Facebook page ‘Let’sgetgarybarlowtosam’s 50th’ has over 2,200 followers, with many helping out with the campaign.

Sam, who works at Fresh Ideas, in Chesterfield Road said: “I get up half and hour earlier each morning, check Gary’s tweets and then send my own, based on what he has been doing.

“Sometimes I just tweet - singer required for August birthday party, are you free?”

Word is getting around the town, with many people coming up to her and asking how the campaign is coming along.

Her friends Becky and Dan, who are currently on holiday in Mexico, have taken a Gary Barlow mask with them, asking fellow tourists to have their picture taken wearing it.

Sam herself did the same on a holiday to Benidorm recently, and then posted the images to her Facebook page.

The campaign stems from Twitter postings by Gary Barlow in March, offering to play at a series of fans’ birthdays this year.

His only catch was that you had to be celebrating a “milestone birthday” in 2016 and you needed to tweet the star with a compelling reason for him to choose your event to sing at. He is set to tour with the band next year to celebrate 25 years since they started out.

Sam is keeping her fingers crossed that he will come to the event in Hasland Village Hall in August.

When Gary does attend celebrations he usually doesn’t tell the person celebrating the birthday that he is going, only a close friend who is sworn to secrecy.

So Sam wont know whether she has been successful until the night.