Back to News

Date: 7 September 2021

Author: Rachel Bartlett

We have joined forces with a fellow south coast property company to buy a potentially life-saving defibrillator for the community arm of football club AFC Bournemouth.

Together with chartered surveyors Wellington King, we have donated the portable machine to the EFL Championship side’s charity, the Community Sports Trust.

The aim is to provide peace of mind for participants and spectators at key Trust events across Bournemouth, Poole and neighbouring parts of Dorset.

Our donation has arrived with the Trust just weeks after millions of TV viewers saw how a defibrillator helped save the life of Danish footballer Christian Eriksen after he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed during his side’s Euro 2020 opening match against Finland.

The Community Sports Trust

Formed in 2001, the Community Sports Trust stages a wide range of sporting events in partnership with businesses, schools and community organisations.

As well as competitive matches, the Trust’s 36 full-time staff provide coaching, teaching and other activities focused on inclusion, with dedicated programmes for girls, women, disabled people, walking football players and ‘Veteran Cherries’.

More than 150 sessions are delivered each week, enabling engagement with 4,000 people aged from one to 101.

A key objective is to help all individuals to reach their potential with dedicated pathways to take them from recreational activities through to registered team sport should they so wish.

The Trust has already trained its staff to use the donated machine, an automated external defibrillator (AED), and are looking to make another course available for new recruits in the coming months.

Because it is portable, the AED can be made available at events in all areas served by the Trust.

Adam Tovey, Valuation Director at MSP Capital and a lifelong Cherries fan, said:

“If an elite sportsman, aged just 29 and continually monitored for fitness, can have a cardiac arrest, then anyone can.”

“Christian Eriksen owes his life to a defibrillator. We sincerely hope the machine we have bought and donated will never be used, but this is about giving reassurance to people in our community. We want people who the Community Sports Trust work with to know they can have ready access to a defibrillator if they ever need it.”

A defibrillator works by delivering a high energy, electric shock to the heart through the chest wall and is most effective when administered in the first minutes after a cardiac victim collapses.

 

Steve Cuss, Head of Community Sports Trust at AFC Bournemouth, said:

“We would like to thank both MSP Capital and Wellington King for their support in enabling us to purchase this vital piece of equipment.

“The AED forms part of our emergency aid equipment that we carry to our activities across the area, giving participants and staff the confidence and knowledge that the equipment is on hand should it be needed.”

prev next