The story of Scinergise dates back to 31/12/2016, 2 months after Scinergise Founding Trustee Oliver Carpenter had his spinal cord injury. Oliver’s lifelong friends, James Fox and Scinergise’s other Founding Trustee Ross Casserly, organised a charity football match at their hometown football club where they all played between the ages of 6-17.
The inaugural event saw many of Oliver’s old friends and teammates get together, dust off the boots and don the villiage colours in front of a crowd of 300+ people from the local area. The match raised money for Oliver, allowing him to purchase products and services to help him once discharged from his initial rehabilitation at Stanmore.
Following the success and enjoyment of the first event, the players agreed to make the New Year’s Eve charity match an annual tradition. The teams got back together on 31/12/2017 to play the match whilst also raising £265 for the Matt Hampson Foundation.
When Scinergise was established as a registered charity in 2018, Oliver and Ross couldn’t think of a better way to announce the new charity than at the third installment of the New Year’s Eve Charity Football match.
The teams were renamed to match some of the core values of Scinergise, with the red team taking the name “Energise” and the Oliver’s blue team named “Empower”. The game itself was the most hotly contested and enjoyable of the 3 years, but ended with a 2-1 victory for Empower with crowd favourite Nicholas Edwards bagging the winning goal and tthe man of the match award.
Not only was the game competative and fun for all involved, the players also dug into their pockets to raise a kick off total of £685 donated to Scinergise. A huge thank you to all and see you next year!
