On Thursday, October 26th, we were at Walton Heath for our Inaugural Steve Coppell Trophy and what an amazing day we had.
The forecast wasn’t looking great but the rain stopped and the sun came out just in time for us to tee off and we had a glorious day at one of the finest courses in the country and Walton Heath really hosted us so well, the course was in superb condition and the lunch was even better!
After golf, we had an emotional double coach presentation. The first coach was the 26th Variety Sunshine Coach that David Welsh from JOIE Baby has now presented and alongside Lady Forsyth (pic below), David presented his coach in his JOIE colours to the ‘Taylor Made Dreams Charity who enable children with life limiting illnesses to achieve their dreams and this Sunshine Coach will I’m sure be a huge part of that.
The second coach was presented by one of our longest standing members Alan Robinson who amazingly presented his 32nd Variety Sunshine Coach to a Special Needs School located close to Alan in nearby Sidcup to The Marlborough School. Both Alan & Steve Coppell went to visit the school the week before and it really made a huge impact on both of them emotionally and I have attached Steve Coppell’s speech, please do listen, amazing words by Steve as always.
We then went in for lunch, which was incredible as it always is at Walton Heath, and Ian Irving did a great job raising funds in the Live Auction and then was then followed by a superb 1,2,3 game by our host Steve Coppell, with some very interesting Q&A’s about Steve Coppell’s career and also with Alan Robinson about our 1990 Variety Golf Captain Sir Bobby Charlton. Just over £21,000 was raised on the day alongside 2 more Sunshine Coaches on the road!
Huge thanks to of course our host Steve Coppell, event sponsor Nick Edwards, Sunshine Coach Sponsors David Welsh & Alan Robinson.
The team scores were very close for the top 4-5 places but the winners raced ahead and were the perfect winners to a perfect day with our host and sponsor taking the trophy. Well done Steve Coppell and Nick Edwards our event sponsor, please see the leaderboard below:
1st – 93 Points = Steve Coppell, Nick Edwards, Paul Eagle, Callum Donaghy
2nd – 88 Points = Steve Sidwell, Mark Coppell, Patrick Bjorklund, Jim Roland
3rd – 88 Points = Steve Sedgley, Ian Watson, Peter Weston, Robin Stock
4th – 87 Points = Paul Jones, David Harris, Michael Dick, Martin Archer
5th – 87 Points = Gareth Barry, Dan Cook, Steve Macrossen, Russell Jacob
6th – 87 Points = Kipp Popert, Neil Bookatz, Laurence Saffer, Andy Wilding