On the evening of Thursday 12th October, East Grinstead Town Football Club were host, once again, to the 14th annual ‘Adam Dabell Memorial Cup and Trophy’ football match between Imberhorne and Sackville schools – in celebration, once again, of the life of my son 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, Sackville took the Cup and Trophy, beating their Imberhorne friends 4 – 2.  (Reversing last year’s result!)

Once again the crowd looked forward to enjoying an evening of great sportsmanship and the two teams did not disappoint. Coming out at the start of the evening looking evenly matched and, with the great skill we have come to expect, entertained us all with 90 mins of terrific football.

By half-time the score stood at 2-0 to Sackville and a determined second half fight back by Imberhorne, with goals by Jake Radcliffe and Dan Goss, simply wasn’t enough to stem the tide. Sackville’s goal scorers were Freddie Webb, who scored a hat-trick, and Harry Bryant.

Another hugely successful evening for both schools and indeed the local Community as a whole, physical and skilful.

Imberhorne are currently still leading 8-6 in the overall head to heads. Watch this space!

At the start of the evening and in my announcements at the end, I made special mention of fellow Town Councillor Bob Mainstone, to whom the evening was jointly dedicated. Bob, himself a former teacher at both Sackville and Imberhorne, very sadly, recently lost a short but determined fight against cancer. Most will remember that Bob presented the Cup and Trophy both last year as our Town Mayor and the year before as Deputy Mayor. Bob is greatly missed by his Town and Council friends.

Rex Whittaker, our Town Deputy Mayor, who always attends for the entire evening, had photos taken with both teams and presented the Cup, Trophy and medals at the end. As always, he had been most impressed with the standard of the football and by the fantastic spirit of the young people of the Town, attending this now well known Community Event.

In thanking, as always, Richard Tramontin and EGTFC , for their kind support of this annual memorial event, in  memory of Adam, and also Steve Hill, the West Sussex Sports Coordinator, who, with Simon Bunn, the idea of 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 13 years since the death of Adam to an un-diagnosed heart condition.

Indeed, Steve himself has only recently discovered and, thankfully, is now on the mend following an operation to rectify, just such a heart condition. Voluntary contributions on the night of the match, plus donations from Adam’s family, raised £500 for CRY for which we are very thankful.

John Dabell