FIVE years ago, seven-year-old Ciaran Latham-Geddes picked up his football boots and headed out to play the sport he loved but he didn’t make it to the pitch.

Last month 31-year-old Adam Cooper was playing rugby for his beloved Culcheth Eagles but he never returned home. 

Every week in the UK, around 12 young people under the age of 35 die suddenly from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. 

To help prevent more families from enduring the same heartache, the Warrington Guardian is launching a campaign to urge the Government to make it mandatory for all young people engaged in organised sport to have an electrocardiogram (ECG).

Ciaran’s mum Marika Latham, who launched a charity in her son’s memory to donate a defibrillator to every school in Warrington, hopes the Government will take action to make sure more young lives aren’t lost.

The 37-year-old said: “Too many children die every week in the UK and lose their lives to this horrid killer.

“I do agree with screening especially in children as they are very active – it should be compulsory in the UK.

“These are the future generations that we are losing – it’s just shocking. 

“As much as there are charities out there, without the backing of the Government we are not going to be able to achieve this.

“It’s so heartbreaking that you have to put a price on a life but it shouldn’t be that way.”

Ciaran died after suffering a cardiac arrest playing football.

It later came to light that the budding footballer had CPVT – a rare inherited heart rhythm disturbance found in young people and children. 

Although Ciaran’s mum fears the screening would not pick up her son’s condition, in Italy where screening is mandatory for all young people engaged in organised sport the number of young sudden cardiac deaths has been reduced by 90 per cent.

While Adam’s mum Joy Cooper-Crippin is still coming to terms with her son’s death, she now hopes that something positive can be achieved from something so painful after he died suddenly from acute cardiac failure.

The 57-year-old said: “I still feel numb – everybody has been brilliant but they don’t know what to say to you.

“I need to get back to some normality but I can’t.

“Things keep going through my head like ‘why?’ and ‘what could we have done?’

“He was a fit young man and he was strong.

“He has left two children behind. If he could have found out about this beforehand then maybe he would still be here to see them grow up.”

LAST year the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) tested 23,000 young people while continuing to train the next generation of medical experts to help save more lives.

Since its formation in 1995, the charity has been working to reduce the frequency of young sudden cardiac deaths but more support is needed.

This is to ensure more people can be screened.

One in every 300 of the young people that CRY tests will be identified with a potentially life-threatening condition. 

CEO Steven Cox told the Warrington Guardian that he believes prevention is better than cure.

He said: “This is one of the most common causes of deaths in young people and you can reduce that figure by 90 per cent by cardiac screening. 

“For us it’s a no brainer and something we must be working towards as a country as we want to prevent other families going through something horrendous.”

The charity is also working towards changing the policy at the highest level. 

Currently, Government policy states that ‘screening should not be offered’ – a position which is at odds with European guidelines.  

The team behind CRY continues to urge the Government to radically rethink its approach to cardiac screening in the UK to help reduce the number of young people dying from the often preventable conditions that can cause sudden cardiac death in young people.

Mr Cox added: “All sporting bodies have routine screening programmes at the highest level in sport but that needs to be pushed further down into grassroots where the majority of deaths are.

“In rugby for instance, if you get to the highest level you will be screened – in both league and union. 

“That is because there have been tragedies in this sport and they want to prevent them. 

“But at the moment the deaths are occurring in the lower leagues.”