Football players urged to spend 15 minutes learning how to save lives
Thousands of football players and fans across North Yorkshire are being urged to spend 15 minutes learning how to save lives.

A new campaign has been launched by the North Riding FA encouraging football players, coaches, referees, parents and supporters to learn CPR in just 15 minutes with an innovative new app from the British Heart Foundation.

North Riding FA CEO Steven Wade says he hopes enough people to "fill Middlesbrough FC's stadium" learn the skill by using the British Heart Foundation's tool RevivR.

A BHF survey following the on-field cardiac arrest of Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen at the Euros in 2021 showed that nine out of ten football fans wanted to learn CPR, and a third had investigated training in the life-saving technique.

The survey also revealed that 69% of fans were more likely to learn CPR if their club helped to provide access to training.

Steven said how Christian Eriksen’s collapse was one of the inspirations for rolling RevivR out across the local footballing community. The scheme will target not just players, but everybody linked to clubs, from coaches through to parents.

Early and effective use of CPR and a defibrillator can more than double the chances of survival in some cases. With more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the UK with a survival rate of less than one in ten.

A person learning how to do life-saving chest compressions on a pillow with the British Heart Foundation's RevivR app. (Image: British Heart Foundation)

People using RevivR will learn how to recognize a cardiac arrest, and will also get feedback on chest compressions as well as outlining how to use a defibrillator, to give people confidence when they're needed to step in and save a life in case of a medical emergency.

“The BHF approached us about their app at the same time as we were thinking about our new health and wellbeing strategy, so the timing was perfect,” said Steven.

“There was a lot of publicity around Christian Eriksen during the Euros and we felt this was the perfect opportunity to use football to promote the importance of learning this skill, giving people the basic knowledge and confidence to know what to do should an emergency arise.”

There are 1,300 teams in around 250 clus across the North Riding FA area, with players' ages ranging from six to those playing walking football in their seventies. Add in coaches, referees, volunteers, parents and others and it's thought that the total of people involved in the grassroots game in the area is more than 30,000 - roughly equivalent to the capacity of Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium.

It's thought more than 30,000 people are involved in football across the North Riding FA's area - roughly the same as the capacity of Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium. (Image: PA)

“I’ve tried RevivR myself already and it’s excellent, I was really impressed with it,” said Steven. “It was really easy to follow and I told my staff afterwards that it was the best 15 minutes I had spent all week.

“And I think that’s the key to it – it’s not just easy, it’s quick. So quick in fact, you could learn how to save a life in the half time period of a football match!”