How a Wirral walking football club rebuilt its emergency plan after a player's cardiac arrest
Graham Pennington is secretary of Moreton Mariners Walking Football Club on the Wirral: 52 members aged 50 to 81, two sessions a week on a 3G pitch behind a leisure centre. On Tuesday 11 February 2025, a 68-year-old player's heart stopped at 8.20pm, and the club's nearest defibrillator was behind a reception desk 190 metres and two doors away.
TL;DR
When Ken, a 68-year-old player, went into cardiac arrest on the pitch, a member started CPR at once but the defibrillator pads went on at 5 minutes 40 seconds and the ambulance lost two minutes at a padlocked gate. Ken survived. Moreton Mariners then bought its own defibrillator for the pitch gate, registered it on The Circuit, trained 41 of its 52 members in CPR and used Bitir to name four emergency roles before every session. In drills, pads now go on in 65 seconds.
Graham Pennington
Club Secretary · Moreton Mariners Walking Football Club, Wirral
Where the club started
Graham, a retired Cammell Laird electrician, helped start Moreton Mariners in 2019 with 11 players and a borrowed bag of bibs. Walking football has no running and no contact above the hip, which suits people coming back to sport after a hip replacement, a stroke or 30 years off. By early 2025 the club had 52 members and sessions on Tuesday evenings and Friday mornings.
The club was run the way most volunteer clubs are run.
- Members and next of kin were in a spreadsheet on Graham's laptop. Only 19 members had given an emergency contact.
- The leisure centre had a defibrillator at reception. Asked afterwards, four of the six regular session leads did not know that.
- Six members had current first aid training, mostly from old jobs.
- The pitch gate was padlocked after 8pm, and the key hung on the session lead's lanyard.
What happened on 11 February?
Ken went down near the far goal without a tackle or a stumble. Sue Holroyd, a retired district nurse who plays on Tuesdays, reached him in about half a minute, found he was not breathing normally and started compressions.
One player rang 999. Two ran for the defibrillator, first to the changing rooms, then round to the front of the building, where reception staff unlocked a cabinet behind the desk. The pads went on at 5 minutes 40 seconds, by the club's best reconstruction. The machine advised one shock. Ken's heart restarted.
The ambulance arrived at minute 13 and the crew spent two more minutes at the locked pitch gate while somebody went to find the lead with the key. Ken spent nine days in Arrowe Park Hospital, had a defibrillator implanted and now referees on Fridays. He asked us to use his first name.
"Sue kept Ken alive. The rest of us ran around a leisure centre looking for a box. We were lucky she was there that night, and I did not want the club's plan to be hoping Sue turns up."
What Moreton Mariners set up in Bitir
Graham and two committee members spent March 2025 writing a one-page plan, following the steps in our guide to an emergency action plan and defibrillators for clubs and the British Heart Foundation's guidance on public access defibrillators. The club moved onto Bitir in April and the new setup went live in May.
- A defibrillator by the pitch gate. Members raised £1,150 in five weeks from a sponsored walk round Leasowe lighthouse and a quiz night. It sits in a heated cabinet on the fence and is registered on The Circuit.
- Four named roles on every session. Caller, CPR, runner and gate. The session lead fills them in Bitir before kick-off from whoever is on the register that night.
- The plan pinned in the club channel, with the postcode, the gate code and the ambulance route, so it is on every member's phone.
- Emergency contacts on member records, visible to session leads and nobody else, with any medical notes a member chooses to share.
- CPR for everyone. Two club nights with a local first-aid trainer and a manikin, plus the BHF's free online RevivR course for anyone who missed them.
- A drill each quarter, timed from the far corner of the pitch.
What changed in the numbers?
Graham compared the club as it stood in February 2025 with June 2026, 13 months after the new setup went live.
The defibrillator check has been recorded on the first Tuesday of all 13 months. In November 2025 the check caught a pad set three weeks from its expiry date, which the guardian replaced for £38.
The plan has been used once since. In March 2026 a 74-year-old fainted on a cold Friday morning. The caller was on the phone inside a minute, the gate was open before the ambulance turned in, and his daughter had a message through the club channel before he reached hospital. He was home that afternoon.
"Naming four people before kick-off takes about 20 seconds. Nobody argues about it any more. The first time we drilled it, the runner had the pads out before I had finished saying 'go'."
What Graham does in Bitir
- Attendance registers for each session, which double as the list the four emergency roles are picked from.
- A pinned post in the club channel with the emergency plan, postcode, gate code and ambulance route.
- Member profiles holding emergency contacts and shared medical notes, visible only to session leads.
- Roles that mark trained first aiders and session leads.
- Dated tasks for the monthly defibrillator check and the quarterly drill.
- The club channel for telling a member's family about an incident the same day, from the club rather than a personal number.
What he would tell another club
- Walk to your nearest defibrillator from the far corner with a stopwatch. Then decide whether it is near enough.
- Find out who has the key to every gate an ambulance might use.
- Get emergency contacts for everyone, not just the members who volunteer them.
- Train lots of people a little, rather than one person a lot.
- Name the four roles every single session. Plans fail on the night the usual people are off.
What's next
For the 2026-27 season the club is lending its drill and plan template to two other walking football clubs that share the pitch, so whoever is playing at 8pm knows where the defibrillator is. Graham also wants the leisure centre to move its own unit from behind reception to an outside wall, and has offered the club's fundraising list to help.
Questions we're asked about this case
What happened at Moreton Mariners in February 2025?
A 68-year-old player collapsed in cardiac arrest during a Tuesday evening session. A member who is a retired district nurse started CPR within about 30 seconds, but the nearest defibrillator was behind the leisure centre reception desk and the pads went on at 5 minutes 40 seconds. One shock restarted his heart. The ambulance crew then lost two minutes at a padlocked pitch gate. He made a full recovery.
Where does the club keep its defibrillator now?
In a heated outdoor cabinet on the fence by the pitch gate, bought with £1,150 the members raised in five weeks. It is registered on The Circuit, the national defibrillator network, so 999 call handlers can see it, and a named guardian checks it on the first Tuesday of each month.
What are the four roles named at each session?
Caller, CPR, runner and gate. The caller rings 999 on speaker, CPR starts compressions, the runner fetches the defibrillator and the gate person unlocks the pitch gate and waves the ambulance in. The session lead fills the four names in Bitir before kick-off, from the members who are on the register that night.
How long does it take to get the defibrillator on a player now?
In the club's last drill, 65 seconds from the shout to the pads being on, measured from the far corner of the pitch. On the night of the cardiac arrest it took 5 minutes 40 seconds.
Name tonight's emergency roles before kick-off
Pick the caller, CPR, runner and gate from tonight's register, pin the plan on every phone and put the defibrillator check on a monthly task.
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