Fans hand over donation to heart campaign

Grays Athletic's fans have made a donation to the heart screening campaign launched by Ryman Premier rivals Tonbridge Angels in the wake of the tragic death of Junior Dian in pre-season.

The Grays Athletic Supporters Trust presented the Angels with a £100 cheque towards their Football Fightback campaign before last Tuesday night's 3-2 win at the Longmead Stadium in Kent for Mark Bentley's side.

Angels launched their campaign to see six hundred young players undergo heart screening after 23-year-old trialist Dian collapsed on the pitch during their warm-up match at Whyteleafe on Tuesday 7 July and later passed away in hospital.

Dian's death followed an earlier tragedy at the club in 2008 when Angels player Jack Maddams passed away in his sleep only days before his 18th birthday and it later emerged that he had an undiscovered heart defect.

The late Junior Dian

The late Junior Dian

Grays Athletic life president Glynn Jarvis said: "The club would like to express their thanks to the Grays Athletic Supporters Trust for their very kind donation. It was a donation of £100 and I think it shows the closeness of our 'Non-League family'."

Tonbridge Angels are working with a number of other clubs in the county and the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (C-R-Y) to screen players in 2016. In a statement on their website, chairman Steve Churcher thanked the fans of their Essex rivals for their support.

He said: "We are very grateful to the supporters of Grays Athletic for their generosity towards a very worthy cause. This was a very generous initiative by their supporters and shows how the Football Fightback campaign is catching the attention of the football fans across the country."

* Awareness around the dangers of sudden cardiac arrests in football was heightened in March 2012 when former England Under-21 star Fabrice Muamba made a remarkable recovery after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham Hotspur in an FA Cup tie at White Hart Lane.

Only around 1 in 10 people normally survive a witnessed, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the UK and a year later the Football Association teamed up with the British Heart Foundation to launch a £1.2m Defibrillator Fund to subsidise the costs of purchasing the life-saving treatment at more than 900 Non-League clubs playing at Steps 1-6.

Instead of paying around £1000 for a defibrillator, the initiative saw clubs pay just over £300, knocking two thirds off the cost.

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