Martyn Jackson scores as England beat Spain 5-1 to win Transplant World Cup in Frankfurt
Martyn Jackson scored as England defeated Spain 5-1 in the final of the Transplant Football World Cup in Frankfurt in September 2026, a tournament contested by players who have all received donor organs.
Jackson fell ill shortly after playing for Ramsbottom United against Cheadle Town in October 2024; two days after the match he started to feel unwell, was hospitalised and diagnosed with myocarditis. Within weeks he was placed on the super urgent waiting list for a heart transplant and underwent successful surgery at Wythenshawe Hospital in Greater Manchester on 28 November 2024.
Before his illness Jackson had played 11-a-side football at Ramsbottom United in the North West Counties Premier Division and spent 13 years across the non-league pyramid after a youth career that included time at Manchester United's academy and spells at Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End and Burnley. His wife Lucy found an opportunity to join an England Transplant FC team on social media during his recovery, and Jackson linked up with the national transplant squad in January 2026. Daley Cross, manager of the England team, said: "She was just trying to do her best for him and trying to find a way to motivate him." He added: "You could tell from him being on the pitch, even though he was so fresh into his journey, that he knew the football game and he would be such an incredible asset to us."
Matches at the Transplant World Cup are seven-a-side with 20-minute halves and reduced physical contact compared with 11-a-side football. Jackson said: "Obviously, when you've had a transplant, you don't think you're ever going to play again. That's what I thought anyway." He also said: "I'll be forever grateful to my donor and the family for what they've given me. They've given me the gift of life and the opportunity to live my life to the fullest." As a heart transplant recipient he must manage his exercise workload more carefully than many of his team-mates and typically plays in 10-minute bursts; many England players at the tournament had received kidney transplants, the most common transplant in the UK.
Jackson's condition became so severe after he fell ill that doctors fitted his heart with a mechanical pump to keep him alive before the transplant. Dr Paul Callan, a consultant cardiologist at Wythenshawe Hospital's Heart and Lung Centre who worked with Jackson, said: "Initially, we used to quote an average wait of seven days on the urgent transplant list," adding: "Now it's up to 14 days. Maybe 10% of patients who are put on the list get too poorly and have to be taken off the list." Typically, only about four or five people are on the super urgent list at any one time in the UK.
England beat six teams on their way to winning last Friday's final in Frankfurt, scoring 36 goals across the tournament. For Jackson, who has not yet met the family of his donor, the prospect of contact is personal: he is considering reaching out to them around the two-year anniversary of his surgery, and Dr Callan described his recovery as "remarkable".
England's victory came three days before the start of Organ Donation Week, which runs from 21-28 September, and follows warnings of a 9% drop in organ donors in 2026 compared with the same period last year and a tally of 8,700 people currently waiting for a donor organ. England manager Cross said: "It is so important to spread that message, have that conversation about organ donation," and added: "I wouldn't have 16 players to manage if we didn't have organ donation. And England wouldn't have just gone and won a World Cup."
