British Army Esports tournament raises almost £2,000 for mental health charity Combat Stress

The Heroes Cup, the British Army’s annual esports competition, has raised £1,857 for veterans’ mental health charity Combat Stress.

The competition, which was open to all members of the British Army Esports community, including serving personnel, veterans and civilians, saw participants face off across three different games: CSGO, League Of Legends and Rocket League.

After a month of competition, the grand finals were held on December 13th 2021 at the Overworld studios in Camberley, and they were streamed live.

Team ‘Checkmate’ took home the Rocket League trophy, ‘Carry Potter’ the Counter-Strike trophy and ‘Bot Gap’ the League of Legends trophy. 

Lt Col Tim Elliott, officer in charge of British Army Esports, said: “One of the key focuses of Army Esports is the community aspect and the drive to look after your mates. As such, mental health is so important and being there for your friends either face to face or online is what mates do.

“If someone needs professional help then Army Esports can help by signposting you to amazing organisations such as Combat Stress. In turn, the Army Esports community will support these great charities as they support us.”

Robert Marsh, director of fundraising at Combat Stress, added: “We’re extremely grateful to the Army Esports team for making Combat Stress their chosen charity for this year’s Heroes Cup. The event was both incredibly entertaining and fiercely contested, and I would encourage everyone with an interest in gaming to engage with next year’s event.

“The money raised will help us to continue providing our specialist support to veterans with complex mental health problems.”

For more than 100 years, Combat Stress has been the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health. Today it focuses on delivering specialist treatment and support to veterans with complex mental health issues.

British Army Esports is an online community composed mostly of gaming and general technology enthusiasts, and has more than 3,000 members.

To find out more about the British Army Esports community visit https://linktr.ee/BritishArmyEsports or get involved by joining the British Army Esports Discord.

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.