29/10/2018
Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to visit this page. This is a cause that is incredibly close to all our of hearts and we really hope that we will be able to raise a substantial amount of money in memory of one our closest friends, George Stephenson.
Last September, we got the news every group of friends in the world dreads. Our beloved Stevo had sadly lost his brave fight with leukaemia. George spent nearly two years of his life so valiantly battling this horrible illness, and did so with great dignity and with the typical positive attitude that endeared him to so many.
George was without question the most talented all-round individual in our year group, excelling not only on the sports field but also in the classroom, on stage, musically and frankly, in anything that he ever participated in. Despite his many talents, George was never arrogant and went about life with a refreshing air of passion, energy and enthusiasm. Stevo remained unbelievably positive and upbeat throughout his illness, and gained considerable strength and comfort from the young people’s cancer charity, CLIC Sargent. CLIC is a really worthwhile organisation, which provides invaluable support to young people and their families, who are living with a cancer diagnosis. It’s a charity George benefited from, but also campaigned for throughout his treatment. George toured the country with CLIC raising money for young people with cancer, putting one of his many talents to use by performing in eight concerts nationwide. The organisation raised a significant amount of money and in recent times, we have put on several events to honour the memory of George and try and assist CLIC with the hard work George started. Across two amazing events at Plymouth Cricket Club and Plymouth Albion RFC, we have raised over £7,000 in his name and can't thank everyone enough for their donations. As successful as these events have proven, we’d like something that will forever remind us of our great friend, and this is what this page has been set up in aid of.
We are attempting to raise £10,000 to put towards the refurbishment and redevelopment of the sports pavilion at Plymouth College School in Ford Park. The aim of this project is to turn this now dilapidated building into a place that can once more be proudly used by pupils and parents alike and restored as a permanent memorial to George in aid of his incredible sporting prowess and contribution to school life across a number of areas. The pavilion will undergo a complete renovation, from new plumbing, electrics and structural work being undertaken to bring this building to life. The changing rooms will be updated and upstairs will see the creation of a multi-functional room for both parents and pupils to use after sporting events at the school. Once all the of the work has been completed, we hope to unveil the new pavilion with a cricket match between ourselves, George’s closest friends, and the current Plymouth College First XI, as well as aptly revealing the newly named ‘George Stephenson Pavilion.’
It seems only fitting when our idea is to revitalise the pavilion in which George spent so much of his youth to speak of his unbelievable sporting prowess. We are sure that many of you reading this page have spent time at Ford Park in the summer months watching George leather the cricket ball to many parts of the field. His extraordinary power on the pitch was feared, often striking the ball onto and hitting the very pavilion we are trying to refurbish. There was once a rumour going around the school that if somebody struck the old clock on the front of the pavilion with a cricket ball, we would all be given a day off school. Whether or not this rumour actually has any truth to it is unknown, but whenever George went in to bat there was always that feeling in the back of your mind that he might just be the one to manage it.
Of course, it wasn’t just the cricketing arena in which George excelled. In our younger years at the school, our rugby games would also take place at Ford Park before we moved on to Delganey for the senior matches. Stevo was a fiercely tenacious rugby player, making the scrum-half position his own from a young age and was renowned for making some of the biggest tackles ever seen in front of the pavilion. In addition, he was also the annual discus and shot-put winner at sports day in the Summer term, and we often looked on in pure admiration at the sheer breadth of his sporting ability.
Thank you for taking the time to read George’s story, and we encourage you to donate generously via the link below. Thank you.
Following Georges death last year at just 24, Plymouth College is refurbishing the historic pavilion on its sports field in his name. As part of this project, Friends of George want to create an amazing hospitality area to celebrate his memory.
