Leicestershire Reds plan 88-mile walk to Old Trafford!
Four Manchester United fans will walk a staggering 88 miles to our final home match of the season, to raise money for a Loughborough children’s hospice.
The quartet involved are all members of our Leicestershire supporters’ club, and hit upon the idea of trekking to the Arsenal match (to be played 11 May) while in Germany last month for the anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster.
“We’ve been an official branch for seven or eight years, and we’ve always talked about doing something out of the ordinary, rather than your raffles and stuff like that,” explains club chairman Ben Bryans.
“So the last couple of committee meetings, we chucked some ideas about. We did a bit of walking while in Munich and said: ‘You know what, we could do this.’
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“None of us really fancy biking or running!” he laughs.
“But walking... we can do three ‘marathons’ [26 miles] for three days, and that leaves about 10 miles for the last day. We didn’t want to do something where it was too easy, where people would go: ‘Well, I could do that.’ So it’s challenging.
“There’s probably going to be bumps in the road and emotional things to get through, but we’re putting the hours in.”
The walk is one thing, but the planning is quite complex in its own right – from chopping the route up into manageable chunks, finding B&Bs in the middle of nowhere, and preparing for the conditions (“It’s Manchester in May, so it could be anything!”).
All money raised will go to Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People, and the group are appealing to fellow Reds to help them reach their campaign target of £5,000.
“The charity is really close to our heart,” says Bryans. “There’s a little girl there called Katie-Rae, and her family are massive Reds too. We’re hopefully going to get a little shirt for her and present that in the coming weeks, and sign her up as an official member.
“The plan is to finish at the Trinity Statue and then probably pass out! God knows how it will be during the match, because we normally stand up in the Stretford End! That’ll be interesting...”
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