Glenn Hoddle's new perspective on life as he reflects on near-fatal cardiac arrest

It is always nice when a sportsman, sportswoman or a celebrity puts his or her name to a good cause, regardless of how much of their time they are able to give. But when it comes to one particular mission, Glenn Hoddle is unstinting in his commitment.

Almost six-and-a-half years ago, Hoddle suffered a cardiac arrest in a TV studio and was clinically dead for minutes before being revived by Simon Daniels, a BT Sport sound engineer. And for the past year, Hoddle has been part of a campaign to encourage people to learn CPR, the life-saving technique that means he is around to talk about it.

“I am sitting here because of CPR,” says Hoddle. “And if you learn how to perform it, you can save someone’s life in the way Simon saved mine. I don’t think there can be anything better.” At Swindon Town’s County Ground, Hoddle looks fantastically well.

He is fit and active and loves football as much as he always has. But as you would expect, the day in October, 2018, has made him think deeply about life.

He explains: “It has given me a completely different perspective on life. I was always somebody that believed that we were here for other reasons and that we live on. I don’t believe that it is the end when we pass away.

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“This has opened my eyes. I’ve gone down a road where now it’s not what we achieve, it’s how we achieve it. I was gone for ten minutes. I just woke up in a hospital, not knowing where I was. If I had gone, that was me gone. I couldn’t have taken my car with me but I could have taken how I had achieved things.

“If you are a head of a big company and you have s*** on people to get where you get to and you’ve hurt people and you don’t understand how you treat people and how they might feel bad about themselves, then you might have achieved some fantastic things but you’ve done it the incorrect way. Doing it the right way is more important.

“In a football analogy, I’ve always said I want to be successful but there is a way of playing.” Hoddle was at the County Ground to send Swindon fans on their way in a leg of the Every Minute Matters cycle relay, the initiative from Sky Bet EFL to raise awareness of how easy it is to learn how to perform CPR.

“You can imagine how important it is for me for people to get out there and learn,” says Hoddle. “Some of these campaigns are about money but this is about awareness. If you know how to do CPR and you are in a shopping centre or in a football ground or wherever you could end up saving someone’s life. I would not be talking to you if it was not for Simon.”

The Sky Bet EFL Every Minute Matters Relay is a gruelling 4,000-kilometre 28-day journey that features an incredible 72 legs, stopping off at each and every EFL club before culminating at Wembley on 21st April. But unlike traditional charity events, the ‘Every Minute Matters’ relay isn’t asking for fans to donate cash but instead is asking fans to give up just 15 minutes to learn CPR.

The relay is the latest phase of Sky Bet and British Heart Foundation’s pioneering Every Minute Matters campaign which set a goal a year ago of encouraging 270,000 football fans to learn CPR – the equivalent to three Wembley Stadiums – by May 2025. With less than two months to go, the campaign has hit a remarkable 235,000 – meaning Every Minute Matters is within sight of its incredible target.

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