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.