On the evening of Thursday 13th October, East Grinstead Town Football Club were host, once again, to the annual ‘Adam Dabell Memorial Cup and Trophy’ football match between Imberhorne and Sackville schools, to celebrate the life of Adam Dabell and to raise voluntary contributions to the charity ‘CRY’ (Cardiac Risk in the Young).

In front of a large crowd of, mainly, our Town’s wonderful young people, Imberhorne retained the Cup and Trophy for a fourth successive year by beating their Sackville friends 4 – 2. The teams came out at the start of the match looking evenly matched and, with their usual great skill, entertained us all with 90mins of terrific football. The following match report, written by Imberhorne’s Year 13 reporters, Marcus Ally and Michael Gillet, will hopefully give you a flavour of this exciting match:

Inside the first minute of the match, Imberhorne’s striker Horn sent a free kick to the back post that was headed across goal by Dallas and, after a scramble in the goalmouth involving the ball coming back off the bar, Cartwright managed to bundle the ball over the line to claim a very early lead. However, a few minutes later a neat through ball led to the equaliser for Sackville, as their striker Webb calmly slotted the ball passed the outstretched arm of Imberhorne keeper Eddowes. Midway through the first half Imberhorne regained their lead as Webb received the ball on the right hand side and found an unmarked Cartwright in the box, whose left footed shot went past the keeper to notch his second of the game. Intense pressure from Sackville was then rewarded as an interception and quick through pass led to Sackville’s left midfielder Woods finishing high into the net, levelling the game once more. On the verge of half time a scooped pass from O’Dwyer led to a superb left-footed half volley across the keeper into the far corner from Cartwright to complete his hat-trick, gaining Imberhorne a deserved lead at the break.

After a quiet start, the half sprang into action with a through ball chased by Imberhorne forward Bull, who got the first touch before being taken out by a Sackville centre-back to earn Imberhorne an obvious penalty. This was then calmly converted by captain O’Dwyer, to put the game out of Sackville’s reach. After that Imberhorne confidently saw the game out to cap a hugely successful evening for the school and local community.” Another excellent game, physical and skillful and an enthralling game to watch. This was the 13th match in memory of Adam and Imberhorne now lead 8-5 in the overall head to heads.

In thanking, as always, Richard Tramontin and EGTFC , for their kind support of this annual memorial event, in  memory of Adam my son, and also Steve Hill, the West Sussex Sports Coordinator, who’s idea the Match originally was, I spoke briefly to declare the event another huge success and asked that everyone dig deep in support of the CRY charity. It is now 12 years since the death of Adam, to an undiagnosed heart condition.

Many good friends and family members, including Adam’s 95 year-old grandmother. and several key Town Councillors attended the evening, including Rex Whittaker, the Leader of the Town Council and our Town Mayor, Bob Mainstone, who attended for the entire evening, had photos taken with both teams and presented the Cup, Trophy and medals at the end. Bob, himself a former teacher and headmaster who until not that long ago worked at Imberhorne and is still very active on behalf of the the young people of the Town, commented that, as always, he had been most impressed with the standard of the football and by the fantastic spirit of young people of the Town attending this now well known community event. Speaking to both teams he said that they had both, once again, shown admirable sporting skill and, with the good humoured support from the large crowd of young people attending, clearly demonstrated to all that the vast majority of young people of our Town are a very great credit to their local community.

Sadly, the usual Sackville v Imberhorne ‘Old Boys’ match, which usually kicks off the evening for us, had to be dropped this year, for mutually considered pragmatic reasons. However, I’m happy to say that many still attended and gave full support to the ‘main event’. Voluntary contributions on the night of the match, plus donations later handed and sent in, raised  £600 for Cardiac Risk in the Young.

John Dabell