On what had threatened to be a wet night but turned out be a mainly dry, if particularly cold night, there was a very large capacity crowd of extremely good-natured mainly young people for the 10th Annual 6th Form Memorial Match, on 10th October 2013.
The Sackville v Imberhorne ‘Old Boys’ match kicked off the evening and, with sheer enthusiasm, kept us entertained before the main event. As always, the Imberhorne v Sackville 6th Formers treated us to 90 minutes of excellent football – the stand, indeed the whole ground, alive with some very robust support for both sides.
The teams came out at the start of the match looking evenly matched and with great skill kept pushing forward; but when the goals started to come it was Imberhorne alone – out for blood after the last 2 years’ defeats – who kept scoring. The final score when the whistle went was 5-0 to Imberhorne – Miles Pitt scored 1 and Steve Palmer scored an incredible 4!
The town Deputy Mayor, Nick Hodges, attended for most of the match, had photos taken with both teams and presented the cup, trophy and medals at the end. As we’ve heard in previous years, Nick’s comment was that he had been most impressed with the amount of Twitter activity and blog entries by young people of the town in advance of the event – clearly showing that this was now a well known community event. Speaking to both teams he said that they had shown admirable sporting skill. The good-humoured support from the large crowd of young people attending, clearly demonstrated to all that the majority of young people are a great credit to their local community.
John Dabell thanked Richard Tramontin of East Grinstead Town Football Club for their kind support of this annual memorial event in memory of Adam, his son; and also thanked Steve Hill – the West Sussex Sports Coordinator – whose idea the match originally was. John declared the event another huge success and said, “Let’s meet here next year and do it again!”
Steve and John also announced the creation of a Memorial Match Tie with an extremely attractive design featuring both 6th Form emblems and timeless appropriateness. Advance orders for the tie, which costs £10, are being taken; and for each tie sold, a minimum donation of £2 will be made to CRY.
Voluntary contributions on the night of the match, plus donations later handed in and sent in, raised £500 for CRY.
Photos courtesy of The East Grinstead Courier & Observer