Service company staff to take on armed services footballers in bid to beat the five-a-side world record (From Swindon Advertiser)

Service company staff to take on armed services footballers in bid to beat the five-a-side world record

8:20pm Wednesday 16th January 2013 in News

FOOTBALLERS based at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham are getting ready to take part in a gruelling 48-hour game – all in the name of charity.

Workers at Serco will take on members of the armed forces in a charity football match – which is also looking to smash a Guinness World Record.

The two teams are hoping to raise £1,000 for the town’s Prospect Hospice by holding the world’s longest game of five-a-side football. The team is planning on playing for two days straight and hope to score some 700 goals.

Serco’s Luke Mitchell, who masterminded the fundraising event, said: “The match is going to be a real challenge of endurance, team work and determination, but it will be worth it to raise money for such a worthwhile cause.”

Serco has had a long history of raising money for Prospect but this fundraiser is particularly poignant.

Luke added: “We wanted to give something back to the hospice as they looked after our friend and colleague in the last weeks of her life.

“She’d be completely behind this match. She was always raising money for the hospice.

“She would help at various fetes we held and was always involved in our annual summer barbeque.”

The current record for the longest five-a-side match is held by the Cochrane Rangers, a Canadian team, who played for 42 hours and one minute.

“We were originally just going to go for 43 hours straight but then we decided to push ourselves and go for 48 hours of non-stop football,” said Luke.

Each team will be made up of eight players of varying abilities and ages, which will allow teams to have rolling substitutions throughout the two-day event. The players will benefit from having trainee physiotherapists from Swindon College on hand to combat any injuries that arise, as well as having beds set up near the main sports hall.

Both teams have been training intensively to make sure they successfully break the world record attempt, with Serco’s in house five-a-side team training extra hard. Despite the camaraderie that has brought the players together, there is still the notion that the match is there to be won.

“There is a sense of competition between the teams; a lot of friendly banter has been given out.

But we’re all there to raise as much money as possible,” added Luke. The match will kick off at noon on Friday, February 1 at the Defence Academy. Anyone wishing to sponsor the team can do so via www.

virginmoneygiving.com/team/ Longest5asidefootballmatch.