'Giving up 15 minutes could save lives'

3 hours ago

Isobel Fry,in Chorleyand

Angela Ferguson,North West

News image — Sam Allardyce said it was crucial for more people to learn CPR as less than one in 10 who have a cardiac arrest out of hospital will survive

BBC A man with short grey hair and wearing a red jacket with 'Every Minute Matters' branding is standing in front of a football pitch. Several men are playing football behind him. — Sam Allardyce said it was crucial for more people to learn CPR as less than one in 10 who have a cardiac arrest out of hospital will survive

Former England and Bolton manager Sam Allardyce has urged more people to give up 15 minutes of their time to learn lifesaving CPR skills.

Allardyce watched a demonstration of the technique given to Sunday league footballers in Chorley, Lancashire.

He is calling on people to do a free 15-minute online training course launched by the British Heart Foundation and Sky Bet as part of its Every Minute Matters campaign, with the charity warning that less than one in 10 people who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive.

"When all's said and done, it's 15 minutes of your time" and doing the training could save someone's life, Allardyce said.

"You can tend to forget, and if you do it once a year, then if anything happens you're going to be in somebody's hands who may actually save your life," he said.

Speaking on a visit to a Sunday league game in Chorley, he added: "I think we need people across the country, particularly in the north west, to be aware [of this] and we're doing that through grassroots football."

Allardyce said he wanted people to do the training so they could "have the confidence to, maybe, deal with a very difficult situation that may occur anywhere".

He has previously worked with football clubs in Bolton, leading a CPR training session at the home of Bolton Wanderers FC at Toughsheet Community Stadium in 2025.

A group of four men wearing football kit are standing behind a woman and a man who are crouched either side of a medical dummy used to practice CPR. — Sam Allardyce puts his CPR skills to the test on a visit to a grassroots football game in Chorley

Former Bolton Wanderers player Fabrice Muamba survived a cardiac arrest during an away game against Tottenham Hotspur in 2012.

Healthcare professionals spent six minutes trying to resuscitate him on the pitch and he was "effectively dead" for 78 minutes.

Muamba, who was 23 when it happened, has since spoken out about the importance of learning CPR skills.

"Everyone knows the story of Fabrice Muamba and how someone getting to that as quickly as they did saved his life," said Steve Bell from Talking Football, which supports men's mental health through football in Lancashire.

Bell, who also attended the training session in Chorley, said quite a few of the team would have done basic first aid training "but if this supports that and just gives someone that little bit of confidence to feel that they can do the CPR then it's going to save a life".

A man with short grey/brown hair and a beard and wearing glasses is smiling as he stands beside a football pitch. He is wearing a red Every Minute Matters top. — Steve Bell from Talking Football, a Lancashire men's mental health support group, is also supporting the campaign

Research from Leeds Becket University found just 54% of people in the North West felt confident recognising a cardiac arrest.

The BHF said it had been attending grassroots football matches like the one in Chorley as part of its CPR skills campaign, resulting in more than 500,000 people doing the training.

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