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No plea for injury time after marathon match

10 May 2013

GAVIN DRAKE

Two days later: Gavin Calver (far right, in blue) and YFC staff and sup­­porters celeb­rate after completing a 48-hour spon­sored football match

Two days later: Gavin Calver (far right, in blue) and YFC staff and sup­­porters celeb­rate after completing a 48-hour spon­sored football match

STAFF and supporters of the mission agency Youth For Christ (YFC) are waiting to hear whether their marathon 48-hour five-a-side sponsored football match last week will qualify as an official Guinness World Record. Either way, they are celebrating after raising £52,000 for the charity ( News, 22 February).

The match was streamed live, and footage will now be sent to Guinness for verification.

Two teams - the Yellows and the Blues - took to the pitch at the Goals sports centre in Rowley Regis, Dudley, on Tuesday of last week. They concluded their gruelling feat at ten on Thursday morning. The Yellows beat the Blues by 950 goals to 658.

Addressing supporters after the match, the national director of YFC, Gavin Calver, thanked the other participants for their "phenomenal" efforts, which involved six months of training. "I have run marathons and cycled the length of the coun-try, but they have been nothing on this."

Asked how he was feeling, he replied: "A huge sense of excitement and achievement, but also absolutely exhausted. But we did it. We got people to sponsor us doing something outrageous, and we achieved it."

The 48-hour football match was the last of his three big fund-raising events: he ran a marathon in 2006, and cycled from Land's End to John o' Groats in 2009.

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