Charity football match raises more than £5,500 for brave Crawley girl

A football match took place last Saturday (May 7) to raise money for local girl Anaya Rana’s chosen charity Momentum, who’s helped Anaya through her leukaemia diagnosis since February 2020.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Crawley Devils FC motto is ‘Stronger Together’. When they found out that one of their under ten players, Amrit Rana's little sister was going through treatment for leukaemia, the club wanted to raise awareness for her condition and find a way to thank Momentum, who helped through the difficult journey.

The club decided to organise a charity football match, and were hugely grateful to Horsham Football Club for the use of their 4G pitch to play the match. They also allowed Devils FC use of their clubhouse for a presentation and charity raffle afterwards.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The match was played by the dads from the whole football club (6 age groups). The dads were split into Haz's Hotspurs, managed by Trevor Wedd, and The Devil's Advocates, managed by Andy Brimelow.

Anaya’s dad during the game (an insight of the players being dads and not season pros)Anaya’s dad during the game (an insight of the players being dads and not season pros)
Anaya’s dad during the game (an insight of the players being dads and not season pros)

The money raised was from individual player donations, sponsorship, cake & food stall, tombola and a raffle, The charity football match had over 40 raffle prizes donated by friends and family members of the football club.

As a small club, they were absolutely overwhelmed with the generosity of Virgin Atlantic, who provided two return tickets to New York! This ironically created 'momentum' for the raffle and led them to selling over 2,000 tickets and raising over £5,500 for their chosen charity.

Devils FC were committed to honouring the Rana family and Anaya's bravery by raising money for Momentum, which has been an incredible support during her treatment.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This was matched by a selfless desire of the Rana family to also help other children via a second charity chosen by the club, Unicef, to support children suffering in Ukraine.

The teams.The teams.
The teams.

Chairman of Devils FC Trevor Warren, said: “Under the circumstances, what a phenomenal family - we are privileged to have them at our football club.

“We're unbelievably proud of all the Devils' families and friends who helped to raise so much money for Momentum and Unicef.”

Related topics: