Black Cats will march on with Jeff

The Black Cats have announced they will be supporting Jeff Stelling’s March for Men as he prepares to walk 15 marathons in 15 days for charity.

The long-standing Soccer Saturday presenter, from Hartlepool, aims to raise £500,000 for Prostate Cancer UK, by taking on the challenge at the start of June.

Jeff will be in Exeter on June 2, visiting more than 40 football clubs as he heads up through the west of England via Bristol and Stoke, and through the northern footballing hotbeds of Merseyside and Manchester.

He will then cut across the country and finish in his native North East, where his boyhood club, Hartlepool United, will also be en-route.

Jeff will start the final day at Durham County Cricket Club, with a stop at the Stadium of Light, where he is expected to be accompanied by former Sunderland players and well-known SAFC supporters.

He said: “After the agony and ecstasy of the walk last year, particularly the agony, so many people have been in touch with stories of their battle against prostate cancer, so many people who wanted to say thank you to me, to Russ Green, and to Prostate Cancer UK for their support.

“It makes me feel very humble, but it also makes me feel very gratified that I’m in position where I can do something.

“Prostate Cancer kills one man every hour in the UK, and I just decided I couldn’t sit on my backside and do nothing about it. I can put one foot in front of the next and hopefully raise awareness and raise funds.

“We also wanted a fresh route and because they shared the same ground name, we thought we would see how far it was between Exeter and Newcastle, and it’s worked out well.

“Crucially, it gives us that opportunity to go to parts of the country that we’ve not been to before to get our message over to people who maybe didn’t hear that message as loudly last time around.”

The mega event is part of Prostate Cancer UK’s wider walking programme, March for Men, which includes a trio of Local Walks across Father’s Day weekend, in London on June 17 and Leeds and Glasgow 24 hours later.

The charity will also be encouraging supporters to hold their own marches to try and raise £1million through walking in 2017.

If you want to support Jeff ’s walk to the Stadium of Light or any other part of the march, or just find out more about his challenge, visit www.prostatecanceruk.org/jeffsmarch.