On the 6th of July 2024, I will be throwing a 5-aside football tournament in memory of Sophie Pemberton to raise money for The Brain Tumour Charity. The Brain Tumour Charity is the world's leading brain tumour charity and the largest dedicated funder of research into brain tumours globally. Committed to saving and improving lives, they are moving further and faster to help every single person affected by a brain tumour.

They are set on finding new treatments, offering the highest level of support and driving urgent change. And they're doing it right now.

This event is dedicated to Sophie Pemberton who on the 29th of April lost her battle to her brain tumour. In 2018/2019 Sophie began suffering with stress induced alopecia due to the loss of her sister. Eventually she braved the shave, which took a lot of strength where she went completely bald yet continued to look beautiful. Her hair grew back over time, but she was then diagnosed with a benign brain tumour, during lockdown 2020. Sophie was the epitome of health, making it a huge shock to her family and friends. Time passed and soon it was recognised as a malignant and aggressive form of cancer (2021). There was little knowledge of how this would affect her later life, how many years she had to come, yet that never stopped her from being her resilient self.

She had a major operation at St George's Hospital where five days later she danced "Jerusalema" on the roof top. She recovered so well continuing to always dance and sing at any given moment, and visiting her favourite country of India where she felt peace again. However, her hair began to fall out again and again making it a relentless, painful cycle for her. Unfortunately, in April 2024, proceeding from a holiday in Spain where she had a concussion, everything began to fall downhill fairly quickly: resulting in her losing her battle, as the tumour rapidly spread. Her family and friends had a week in hospital with her where she selflessly fought for her life so people could cherish her till the end, until she died peacefully surrounded by the people she loved.

We aim to continue Sophie's legacy of being a joy-bringer and peace-maker every place she went. Sophie was gifted in bringing people together through friendship, faith and community which we aim to do through this football tournament.

Know if you contribute to this cause you won't just be doing this for Sophie but also thousands of families and households who are affected by brain tumours.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this and we hope to see you on the 6th of July!!

Lola Peppiatt and Bella Pemberton