Pam’s on a mission to bring British Transplant Games back to Portsmouth for 50th anniversary event

The 2023 staging of the multi-sport event, featuring over 1,000 athletes who have all had transplants, is held at Warwick University over four days starting this coming Thursday.

Pam is again managing the team that will compete under the ‘Portsmouth’ banner, with all athletes having either had their transplant operation in the city or their regular appointments here.

But while she was only one of three to represent Portsmouth in Leeds last year, this year a team of 14 - herself included - are travelling to the midlands to compete in an event alongside teams from over 50 hospitals across the four home nations.

The tournament was the brainchild of Dr Maurice Slapak, who was appointed transplant surgeon at the Wessex transplant unit at St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth in 1974.

Four years later he invited 99 people - who had undergone an organ transplant at some point - to the city to compete against each other. They were dubbed the ‘99 blooming miracles’. The British Transplant Games was born, though the inaugural event included competitors from France, Greece and even the USA.

‘It was a very low-key event held on a grass field without a running track but with lots of casual onlookers as it was close to the shore in Southsea,’ Dr Slapak remarked years later.

The second Games was also held in the city 12 months later, but since then has enjoyed a peripatetic existence - only returning once more to Portsmouth, in 1994.

Pam is eager to bring the sporting celebration back ‘effectively back home’.

She has already held ‘several meetings’ with stakeholders, as Portsmouth City Council, the University of Portsmouth and QA Hospital would all need to come on board.

The Navy would also need to play a part, with some of the events being held at HMS Temeraire in the shadows of Gunwharf Quays.

‘It would be unbelievable to have the Games in Portsmouth for the 50th anniversary,’ enthused Pam. ‘It would be worth two or three million to the local economy.

‘You’ll have between 1,200 and 1,500 athletes and they would bring two to three thousand guests.

‘They would all need accommodation in the city and they’ll all be spending money.’

The Portsmouth team set to compete this week will again include Nicole Mackenzie, who recently competed in the World Transplant Games in Australia.

It was a hugely successful trip for the 25-year-old from Purbrook, who received a kidney transplant from her dad when she was 11.

Nicole won seven gold medals, five individual and two relay. But that wasn’t necessarily a huge surprise - she does hold FIVE World records and has won over 60 gold medals in swimming events since her British Games debut in 2009!

Jeremy Clifton, who has received a bone marrow transplant, was the only other Portsmouth athlete to compete in the recent Worlds in Perth, Western Australia.

There is little money, meanwhile, in transplant sport.

Pam admits all the Portsmouth team have self-funded their trips this week, including travel and accommodation costs as well as a £40 entrance fee. There are no cash prizes for winning. ‘There’s cups and medals, which are just as treasured,’ she remarked.

‘There’s no large sums of money, no egos, it’s like one big family where everyone is treated the same.

‘Dr Salpak was keen for the Games to raise awareness of organ donation, and you can see what giving an organ can do to someone else.

‘You can see the elation people feel when they compete. Last year there was a three and a half year old girl who managed to walk about five metres. She wasn’t the fastest, but she got the biggest cheer of all.

‘It’s an amazing feeling (to watch the Games). There’s a level of competition there, and everyone has their own story.’

Portsmouth’s team comprises adults, for the sole reason that the area’s centre of child transplants is in Southampton.

‘Our team ranges from people in their 20s to some in their 60s. There’s no age limit - there was an 85-year-old in a running event last year.

Pam added: ‘We don’t have a sponsor at the moment. It’s easier to find sponsorship if you have children in the team.

‘I’ve bought the team t-shirts this year, but ideally I’d like them to all have tracksuits.

‘You’re asking them to keep fit, they have to pass a medical to take part - we don’t take any Tom, Dick or Harry!

‘It’s amazing how many big companies I’ve spoken to who don’t know about us.

‘But it’s a big thing. You can see how they started out with 99 people and now there’s more than a thousand, that’s the scale of the event.’