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Adam Ankers passed away suddenly in January 2024 at age 17. His family hope he will leave a significant legacy Photo: The Ankers family; design: Kelsea Petersen The Athletic has live coverage of the latest 2026 World Cup news. On his captain’s armband, Adam Ankers had written four words that he wanted to take with him onto the football pitch. Strength, Inspiration, Leader, Desire. “They gave us the armband in the hospital, ” says his father, Alastair. “It’s framed now in Adam’s bedroom. Apart from some pictures that we’ve put on the walls, his room is pretty much untouched from the Wednesday morning that he left. Though, to be honest, it’s very hard to go in. ” Advertisement It was January 31 2024, a Wednesday, when Adam set off from home, as a 17-year-old in the Wycombe Wanderers Foundation team, and it will always be difficult, heartbreakingly difficult, for his family to open his bedroom door and see all the reminders of happier times. His deodorants are neatly lined up on one side. Behind the red Arsenal-branded curtains, his athletics medals hang in the window. An Arsenal scarf is pinned to the wall. It is just a typical teenage bedroom, with a Play Station in the corner and a pull-up bar in the doorway for his daily workout. Everyone says the same: he was a fitness fanatic, dedicated to his exercise regime and intent on making a career in the sport he loved. “He was buried in his yellow Arsenal shirt, ” his mother, Naomi, tells The Athletic. “He would be in his element with how Arsenal are doing now. ” What nobody knew was that Adam had a genetic heart condition known as ARVC (arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy). Wycombe were playing Procision Oxford at Henley College in Oxfordshire, where Adam was taking a level 3 BTEC in sport. The score was 3-3, a closely-fought match between the third- and fourth-placed teams in their under-19s league. Then, with 74 minutes gone, one of the coaches, Christian Williams, noticed Adam looking unsteady and called over to check he was OK. “Yeah, ” came the reply, followed immediately by, “Oh no, my heart. ” Then Adam fell forward, in sudden cardiac arrest. Two years on, his parents have decided to speak publicly because of their firmly-held belief that football, and sport as a whole, should be doing more to prevent other families from going through the same ordeal. And it doesn’t take long in their company to realise the relevant authorities would be foolish not to listen. We sit on a downstairs sofa while Adam’s brother Danny and sister Cara walk down the drive on their way home from school. A golden retriever, Rocket, plods around and the windowsill in the lounge is filled with framed photographs of holidays, family events and happy occasions. Adam looks back at you from so many of them: big smile, mop of brown hair, almost always wearing some kind of sports kit. Advertisement At the inquest in early March, coroner Valerie Charbit announced she would be filing a ‘Prevention of Future Deaths’ report and writing to the English Football Association to express several concerns, one being the level of SCA (sudden cardiac arrest) training for coaches and referees outside the professional circuit. That, however, is not the same as compelling the FA to take action. Will anything change? Or to rephrase the question, can the guardians of English football really afford to do nothing when the number of SCA deaths is so startling and in many cases, Adam included, there is overwhelming evidence that a young person’s life could have been saved? “I was working that afternoon, ” says Alastair, an anaesthetist at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a short drive north of High Wycombe, recalling the day his world turned upside down. “We were halfway through an operating list when I realised my mobile phone was ringing. It was somebody from Adam’s college to say that something terrible had happened and, ‘You’re going to have to come straight away’. I said, ‘Can you tell me what it is? I’ve got a patient here who’s asleep and having an operation’. Then it was explained that Adam had collapsed and they (the paramedics) were doing CPR. ” Naomi remembers that morning being, for Adam, “exactly the same as any other day”. She was at home, having worked the night shift as a senior nurse at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Adam’s younger brother, Danny, was at school, preparing for a football match of his own. Cara, the youngest child, was in class. When Adam’s parents arrived at Harefield Hospital, north-west London, where their oldest son had been taken, they were told CPR was still ongoing. With their medical backgrounds, they fully understood what that meant. “It was clear that if they hadn’t managed to resuscitate him by that point, it was going to be a bad outcome, ” says Alastair. “We went in to see Adam. We’re both used to seeing stuff like that (through our work), but it’s very different when it’s your 17-year-old son. We probably knew (the outcome) at that point. ” Advertisement After four days in intensive care, the scans showed there was nothing more that could be done. Adam, described by his father as a “confident and fiercely independent young man”, had brain-stem death. “You would never, in a million years, picture yourself in that scenario, ” says Naomi. “It was … (her voice fades out) surreal. They will always give you time, as a family, to get your heads around everything. But you know they can’t go on forever. ” Cara, then 12, washed her brother’s hair and moisturised his hands. Alastair told his son about Arsenal’s 3-1 win against Liverpool on the Sunday, and the goals from Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard. In those almost unimaginable hours and days of anguish and heartbreak, Alastair had already read extracts to him from Arsene Wenger’s autobiography — a Christmas present that Adam had not yet read. The family took a clay imprint of Adam’s hand, now framed in his parents’ bedroom, and told him how much they loved him. The following day, the life support machine was switched off. Since that day, Alastair and Naomi have dedicated themselves to finding out exactly what happened and making sure all the available evidence was brought to their son’s inquest, turning what would initially have been a four-hour hearing at West London Coroner’s Court into one that lasted six days. Some of that information has been troubling in the extreme. They have found out, for example, that the emergency call handler at South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) did not recognise the symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest when one of Adam’s coaches rang 999. Although a defibrillator was brought out, the message from the call handler, who was not medically trained, was not to use it and to place Adam in the recovery position rather than starting CPR. That, for the family, was a catastrophic misjudgement, with an eight-minute gap before the paramedics arrived and started trying to resuscitate Adam. It was, in the coroner’s words, a “missed opportunity” that “more than minimally” contributed to his death. Advertisement “If you’ve got someone on a 999 call saying, ‘Do not use it’ (the defibrillator), I wouldn’t want to over-rule it, ” the referee, Leon Morris, told the inquest. “If you’re being helped by someone with better understanding and training, you’re going to follow that, aren’t you? ” In her findings, the coroner stated that the referee had acted reasonably. It was confirmed, however, during the inquest that Morris, a level-six referee (with level seven being the lowest), was not required to have undertaken the Football Association’s ‘Introduction to First Aid Training’ course (which includes a module on sudden cardiac arrest), nor the governing body’s separate and more detailed ‘Sudden Cardiac Arrest’ training. Morris, who had undertaken first-aid through his work in the Royal Air Force, told the inquest he had still not done the main SCA training. That leaves Adam’s family wondering how many other referees officiating matches across the country are in the same position. “I couldn’t believe it, ” says Alastair. “Yet the FA doesn’t make it mandatory. ” In her findings, Charbit described it as a “matter of concern” that it was not mandatory for at least one person at every FA-affiliated grassroots match to have full SCA training. The coroner said she would inform the FA of her concerns that the training “was not more widely disseminated or mandatory for all grassroots football coaches and referees”. Charbit, who had undertaken the SCA training herself, went on to state she was also concerned that cardiac screening was not more widely available for young footballers. According to research from Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY), one in every 300 people to be voluntarily screened has a serious issue they do not know about. ARVC and other inherited heart conditions are thought to be responsible for 600 sudden deaths a year — 12, on average, every week — among people aged 14 to 34 in the UK. “If 12 teenagers were killed every week in a bus crash, there would be uproar, ” says Alastair. “With (SCA deaths), because it happens here and there, dotted across the country, and often doesn’t get publicity, nobody really thinks about it. ” In her summing-up, the coroner said she did “not accept” the testimony of Professor Charles Deakin, medical director for SCAS, who told the hearing it was reasonable that the call handler did not offer basic life-support advice based on the information from the scene. Advertisement For Adam’s grief-stricken parents, listening intently in the courtroom, it was jarring to hear Deakin’s evidence. “Still to this day, you’ve got the professor who does not seem, to us, to accept there is room for change and development, ” says Naomi, who had to leave the courtroom during other parts of the inquest. “Until you break that circuit, there are going to be more kids who die like this. ” In a statement, SCAS said it had passed the case to NHS Pathways as a result of its own investigation and that “changes have now been made at a national level”. As a result, emergency call takers had been trained, according to SCAS, to “triage a patient who has collapsed taking part in sport or exercise as a potential cardiac arrest and provide basic life-support instructions, including the use of a defibrillator where one is available”. At their home in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, Adam’s family are grateful for the support they have received from their local community. Six of Adam’s close friends — Keon, Taylor, Tom, Luke, Olly and Thomas — carried his coffin at the funeral. Some used to nickname him ‘Dad’ because of how he looked after others. Keon had a stone made etched with the words ‘brother from another mother’, which is now at Adam’s grave. Last year, on what would have been Adam’s 19th birthday, the family went to watch Paris Saint-Germain. For his 18th birthday, it was a trip to Spain and a tour of Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium. This year, a Borussia Dortmund game is one option. The idea is to celebrate a boy who, in his father’s words, “had so much promise and could have brought so much more joy and happiness into the world”. Every day, however, is a challenge. The little things can be heartbreaking: remembering to buy less food; not having so many clothes to wash; having to clear out the snacks cupboard, because everything had gone out of date. Adam, also a sprinter who represented Buckinghamshire in the 100 metres, had the sweetest of sweet tooths, according to his family. It was a running joke that, if they went out for a meal, he would always choose the most expensive dessert on the menu. Naomi still follows Arsenal’s results — not because she is a football fan herself, but more for Adam. Alastair, however, can find it hard to watch their games on television. “Almost every match, it seems like there’s a 16- or 17-year-old making his breakthrough, ” says Alastair, who supports Leeds United. “I’m sure it was always like that, but it always feels really stark now and makes me think of Adam. ” Advertisement It can be challenging, too, when he takes Danny, now 17, to Wycombe Wanderers games. Previously, there were three of them who had season tickets at their local club, who play in third-tier League One. Now, three has become two. Other stories make it clear why Mark Gaitskell, chief executive of Wycombe Wanderers Foundation, described Adam as a “talented, popular and much-loved young man” and the club renamed their Adams Park stadium to ‘Adam’s Park’ for one match. There was the time, for example, Adam went on a World Challenge trip to Tanzania, helping to paint and renovate a school, and proudly walked through Heathrow Airport on his return in an African tribal gown. Or the occasion when a girl at school was getting a hard time from some of the boys in her football team. “Adam took her to one side and told her to ignore what was being said and carry on doing her best, ” says Alastair, with unmistakable pride in his voice. “Since his death, we have heard many stories of quiet acts of generosity and kindness that seem to have been almost routine for him as he went about his day. ” Adam was trying to get a university soccer scholarship to go to the United States and make his life in the sport. He had started as a striker for his local team, Risborough Rangers, but later moved into the centre of defence and, captaining Wycombe’s foundation side, he wanted to switch to right-back as it gave him the licence to get forward. On the day of his collapse, he got his way. “I told him he was going to play right-back, ” coach Williams told the inquest. “There was a big grin on his face… he was happy. ” Alastair, who coaches Risborough Rangers’ under-17s, hopes to meet Professor Lisa Hodgson, the FA’s medical education lead, to discuss what should happen next. Change is important, he says, because “if even one person, or family, didn’t have to go through this, it would be the best thing”. Advertisement In a statement, the FA said: “We were deeply saddened to learn of the tragic passing of Adam Ankers and our thoughts remain with his family and loved ones. We have supported the coroner throughout the inquest, and we will fully review their findings and recommendations. ” That, at least, is a start. Everyone who follows the sport knows what happened to Christian Eriksen, Tom Lockyer, Fabrice Muamba and, fatally, Marc-Vivien Foe. Yet the point here is that it is further down the football pyramid, away from the expert medical care and on-site paramedics of the professional ranks, where people with undiagnosed heart conditions are more vulnerable. The recent death of 15-year-old Amelia Aplin, playing for Oxford United’s academy in a game against Fulham, was also mentioned at Adam’s inquest. As well as more screening and mandatory training, Adam’s parents want the FA to make its SCA course a face-to-face exercise again, rather than keeping it as an online module — a switch that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic and never went back to its original format. The coroner will report the feedback in the middle of April and, out of such a terrible tragedy, it has to be hoped that Adam’s legacy is to make the sport safer. “The more people we train, the better, ” says Naomi, scrolling through her phone to look at pictures of her oldest son. “We have to make people realise you need to start CPR pretty damn quickly. The defib is a diagnostic tool — just put it on. Because if somebody had said, ‘Put that defib on’ with Adam, we could have been in a different place. ” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Daniel Taylor was named Sports Journalist of the Year at the 2025 British Press Awards, the third time he has won the award. He is also a four-time Football Journalist of the Year and the winner of numerous other awards for his reporting, investigative work and feature writing. Daniel, a senior writer for The Athletic, is based in Manchester and was previously the chief football writer for The Guardian/The Observer. He has written five books. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DTathletic