It started on Friday morning the 29th when Colin and Ken met five committed football fans who were embarking on a marathon charity fundraiser. There task was to drive non-stop from John O’Groats to Lands End visiting 88 football clubs from 22 different leagues along the way.
The five; Keith Loddy, Nigel Blake, Nick Ringham, Brian Bigwood, and Anthony Burles are seen below with Ken at the Harmsworth Park.
Their aim is to raise as much money as possible via individual sponsorship for two very worthy causes; Macmillan Cancer Support and Harrow Borough Football Club.
The Harmsworth Park was their first stop, then after calling in at a further 26 teams in Scotland, they will visit 61 non-league teams in England. Starting with Penrith FC in Cumbria and hopefully by Sunday night or Monday morning, make their last stop before Lands End at Penlee Park home of Penzance AFC of the South Western League.
This is a wonderful challenge, and this morning they finished their task arriving at the 88th club, Penzance at 11:04 and reached Land’s End at 11:29.
More details of this amazing trip can be found on their web site.
Our second set of visitors, Jason Cook and Mark Stephenson, arrived at the Harmsworth Park on Saturday afternoon following a 17 hour train journey from Eastbourne in East Sussex. The two are pictured below with Colin prior to the game.
Jason was Marks best man when they got married, and as a present Mark said he’d take him to a football match anywhere in Britain. Prior to this they decided to take an interest in the Highland League and put all of the team’s names in a hat. They each picked one, and out of the bag came Wick Academy and Forres Mechanics. They looked at the fixtures list and originally wanted to come and see the Wick v Forres game, but unfortunately couldn’t manage that one as it was in the Christmas week. So instead they decided to come this weekend for the Clach game.
They were treated to a bit of Caithness hospitality at the game, and then afterwards in the Town and County club. We hope they enjoyed their visit to Caithness and Wick Academy, and will come back to visit us again sometime.
