Angels to screen their 1000th heart

On Saturday 9th December the clubhouse at Longmead, home of Tonbridge Angels, will be transformed into a fully working operational heart screening clinic. The club is once more hosting and funding another Football Fightback session whereby young people between the ages of 14 and 35 will be tested for an undetected heart defect. The session is now fully booked which indicates the importance that people attach to such events.

So far over £35,000 has been raised by the club, its supporters and local organisations- and Saturday will see the 1,000th young person tested in the 10th screening to take place since the initiative launched.

The session is facilitated by Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) a charity dedicated to reducing the numbers of young people who die suddenly and needlessly from undetected heart issues.

Football Fightback is a fund launched by Tonbridge Angels in 2015 that followed the sudden deaths of two of their younger players from undiagnosed heart disease. The Club vowed at that point that they would do all they could to try and ensure that there would be no repetition of these tragedies. The generosity of supporters, residents of Tonbridge and local organisations resulted in enough money being raised that meant that not only all their own players could be screened, but also those from other sports clubs and the general public.

The Sports Minister Tracey Crouch MP and Tonbridge MP Tom Tugendhat will both be in attendance on Saturday.