DEVON resident Martin Baker was part of the England Transplant football team that represented the country in the 2024 World Cup.

The team have just returned from their travels, visiting Italy for the tournament.

Martin has had two kidney transplants as part of a three-way match and first got involved in transplant sports in 1980.

This came about through his renal nurse in London’s Guy’s Hospital, the year after he had his first transplant, a live donor from his mum.

He described this tournament as being “great to promote the gift of life while playing a game that I have always loved. It was fantastic to be able to play against teams from around the world and great to play at such a high standard”.

England topped their group with five wins from five, beating France, Ireland, Wales, USA and Romania on their way to the summit.

Martin said the the group had “supported each other and had a great laugh too”, adding that “all the supporters were fantastic and really helped to distract and calm the nerves”.

This camaraderie made for an even better trip and it shone through on the pitch, with the team winning six games out of seven in total and able to earn the title of the third-best team in the world.

Martin mentioned, celebrating the gift of life is the key ethos to the tournament.

There was just as much pride from his wife Jacqui, who said: “To spend a week being able to speak about all things transplants, the ups and downs and how it impacts family life was really refreshing. It was an emotional week. [There were] tears and hugs of celebration and pride.”

This was the first-ever Transplant World Cup and Martin has other sporting ventures to look forward to as well. He has taken part in the Transplant Games previously and he has volleyball coming up in November.

Being a 53-year-old alongside 20-year-olds competing in the contest is an additional source of pride for Martin, who said it had been “not bad for our first world cup”, joking “I guess that puts me in the history books for Transplant Games.”