A group of Okehampton friends will host a charity rounders game this August in honour of their friend who lost his battle to cancer.

Friends Chris Drewe, Trevor Cousins, Pete Gross, Paul Penna, Lisa White, Martyn Letchford, Nick Jones, Steve Harris, Andy Gee and Andrew Luxton have organised the game to raise money for the Exeter Leukaemia Fund in memory of Mr Cousins’ son, Neal, who lost his battle to leukaemia 25 years ago.

The event will be held at Okehampton’s rugby club on August 28 from 1pm-11pm and will also include music by singer/songwriter Ebby Vallance and Devon-based band Vicious Kitten.

Okehampton butchers AL Martin and Sons has offered a mini-break in Cornwall as the main prize in the day’s raffle.

Chris Drewe said: ‘I don’t like the word “memorial,” but we wanted to hold a celebration of Neal’s life for us to get together again and remember.’

Neal had been particularly sporty throughout his life, and, following his death in 1997, his friends set up an annual fundraising event in Neal’s name involving the football and rugby clubs, which proved to be especially popular.

The event ran for ten years but Neal’s friends have decided to revive it with a new spin on it - a game of rounders rather than football or rugby.

Another one of the event’s organisers, Lisa Santiago-Griggs, said: ‘This event was a huge fundraiser previously bringing both the rugby club and football players together along with their families for a day to remember, playing either football or rugby but we are all 25 years down the line and a little older and rounder now.

‘After a long break we thought it would be nice to organise an anniversary event in memory of Neal, bringing both football and rugby players old and new back together in a fun-filled rounders tournament which has numerous teams involved, selected by already named captains who were involved back in the day with team mates and friends.’

The friends hope that they will be able to make at least £1,000 for the charity and, as the Times went to press, they had already raised £120 through the GoFundMe page which was set up at the beginning of this month.

The Exeter Leukaemia Fund (ELF) is a registered charity that supports patients with blood cancer and other blood disorders who attend the Haematology Centre at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

As part of its work ELF offers patients and families with transport, counselling, accommodation near hospitals and financial and legal advice in order to lessen the stress of dealing with practical matters during and post-treatment.

Data collected by Cancer Research UK revealed that nearly 10,000 people in the UK were diagnosed with leukaemia each year from 2016-2018.

To donate to the rounders match fundraiser visit, www.gofundme.com/f/25yr-memorial-match