Club works together to raise money for food bank

PLAYERS and staff at Northern League Division Two club Newcastle University have completed a unique challenge to raise over £1,200 for the Newcastle End Food Bank.

The reigning Northern Alliance champions were left with eleven away games to play when the coronavirus epidemic brought an early end to their first season as a Northern League club.

But they took the decision to run the equivalent distance between their Kimberley Park home and the grounds they would have visited during the last two months of the season.

A whole host of players, officials and staff all pitched in and followed government guidelines by running around their local towns and villages to run a total of 500 miles and raise over £500 for the food bank.

The challenge came to a close on Friday and the club have smashed their initial fundraising target, with the current total sat at £1,245.

Defender Joe Blanch explained why the club decided to take on the challenge and why the food bank was identified as the beneficiary of their fundraising.

He told The Sunday Sun: “It’s been a joint effort with the whole club getting involved.

“The distance to away grounds has been a minimum for us to achieve and we have actually tripled that target on most days.

“Everyone has been chipping in and it’s been a real team effort.

“Our initial target for fundraising was £500 and we reached that in the first day and our target for distance was 500 miles, but we are well over that already too.”

“We did something for the East End Food Bank at Christmas, and we wanted to do something else to help them through this difficult time.

“We felt that they were possibly being overlooked as places that need funding with everything that is going on at the moment.

“The NHS is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so, but there are other institutions that needed help and that is why we wanted to help them.

“The amount of people they support is huge and it’s a really worthwhile cause.”

You can still donate to the Newcastle University FC Justgiving page at https://www.justgiving. com/crowdfunding/nuafcnefoodbank and more information on Newcastle End Foodbank can be found here https://newcastleeast.foodbank.org.uk/