Leeds United legend Stuart Dallas and Conor Houton on Sky Bet EFL Every Minute Matters Relay as it reaches Wembley Stadium

Conor, 29, took part in the Sky Bet EFL Every Minute Matters Relay cycle ride on April 2 behind former pro Stuart Dallas to inspire fellow Whites supporters – and even their rivals - to learn lifesaving CPR.

The campaign has seen ex-players, celebrities and fans covering 4,000km in 72 legs over 28 days - culminating today at Wembley Stadium.

But like Dallas, whose mother died after a heart attack when he was a boy, Conor’s father Michael died aged 65 in March 2019 after a cardiac arrest, despite his and the paramedics' best efforts.

"I thought it was important to try and tell the story of someone who hadn’t survived and somebody who wasn’t fully trained,” says Conor, who was 23 when his dad died.

Talking to The Yorkshire Post, he recalls what happened. “About six years ago I’d just been out with my mates on a Friday night and the next morning my mum woke me up. She was just screaming, telling me to come down to help my dad. He was sat at the end of the dinner table and he was unconscious. I came flying down the stairs and knew something was wrong so I thought I’d try and give him CPR. I wasn’t fully trained at the time. I’ve seen the adverts for the British Heart Foundation so I just grabbed him out the chair, put him on to the floor, tried to administer CPR as best I could. But my mum was on the phone to 999 at the time and they talked her through it, so I was able to administer it properly after a bit but what I was doing before that probably wasn’t right because I wasn’t fully trained.

"Paramedics came after a time and they tried to carry on using CPR and used a defibrilator on him and then about half an hour later they informed us that he’d passed away.”

Conor says his dad, a builder from Donegal who had lived in Leeds for about 40 years, was a “lovely person, just great to be around, really funny. Loved his sport and his history and his culture. He was just a great person and I think a father figure to everyone, and he always had an ear for people.”

In the years since, Conor couldn’t bring himself to learn CPR until the campaign, which he says is allowing him to “address that trauma head on and try to turn that awful thing that happened into a positive.”

Dallas’s mother, Jacquline, died in 2001 when was the retired Whites player was just 10 years old, but it was Conor’s story which moved him to become involved in the campaign.

He says: "It was a lot different for me because I wasn’t with her at the time, whereas Conor had to perform CPR on his dad, but my grandda, as well, suffered a number of of heart attacks and cardiac arrests and it’s just something, when I was approached, I thought would be good for me to get involved in.”

Along with his family, Dallas logged on to the RevivR tool on the British Heart Foundation website, which teaches visitors CPR in a quarter of an hour.

"It’s basically a 15 minute video, it shows you how to do it and talks you through it, and tells you the right steps,” says Dallas. “I’ve actually done it last night with my wife and mother- and father-in-law in the kitchen, which is great because obviously you don’t need to go anywhere to do it and it’s only 15 minutes.”

Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation’s Every Minute Matters campaign has already beat its target to encourage 270,000 people across Britain to learn CPR.

The idea, starting nearly a year ago, was to encourage the equivalent of three times the capacity of Wembley Stadium to use the online tool and start learning the lifesaving technique.

Now the campaign is setting its sights on making it a multiple of four – and encouraging 360,000 to learn CPR by the time the Sky Bet EFL Play-Offs kick-off at the end of May.

"It's a really massive privilege to have (Dallas) involved, with his status in the city and winning a title, a player in that Marcelo Bielsa team," Conor says. "It makes me so happy he's involved, he brings so much awareness to it as well and the fact that he's telling his own story will hopefully drive more people to learn CPR as part of it."

Though he did some pedalling on an exercise bike in the back bedroom of his house, Conor's fitness levels mostly come from playing Gaelic football and he wore a pair of shorts from his other favourite sport just for the occasion. Dallas said before they set off that his last time on a bike was during a rehab session while still going through treatment for his career-ending injury.

"It was really good," said Conor after the ride. "I spent most of it sagging behind because I think I was on a worse bike than everyone else, but it was a really enjoyable, nice ride to do. It took us a couple of hours and we stopped half-way. Great day for it and nice scenery, I loved it. Stuart could quite easily come back and play for us, he's still absolutely flying. He took off at one bit like a rocket as we were climbing out towards Shadwell. We had a good catch-up before we set off and he was really sound."

Family and friends were there to greet the riders as they arrived at Harrogate Town's ground before the relay moved on. Conor's mum flew over from Ireland to join his wife Tara and children, Thomas and Maeve, as part of the welcoming committee, along with some of his dad's family members too.

To learn CPR in 15 minutes, visit https://revivr.bhf.org.uk/efl