WE’RE ALL THE BEST BY MYLES
Rivals join forces to raise NHS funds
USUALLY they’re the fiercest of rivals but inspirational Hartlepool defender Myles Anderson brought every National League club onto the same team this week.
The 30-year-old has been raising money for the NHS Charities Covid-19 Urgent Appeal, a campaign by NHS Charities Together, with his Moving with Myles effort.
Anderson, along with other Pools players and staff, had been thrashing out the miles to raise money and this week took it a step further by involving the rest of the National League.
On Tuesday, via the Myles_For_The_NHS, a player from each of the 24 clubs joined Anderson one-byone during their own runs remotely via his live stream on Instagram during the hour-long initiative.
“I had seen how the virus had impacted the family around me and I thought, ‘what can I do to help?’” Anderson told The NLP. “Then it became clearer, ‘what can we all do to make a difference?’.
“We only started organising it last weekend and we were on the phone from morning to night. We can only go outside for an hour so we had to fit it in that time, we didn’t want to be encouraging anyone to be out for longer.
“I don’t know a player from every team so I had to speak to some players I did know to help put me in touch with players from other teams.
Message
“The response I got from the guys was great. They are humble, honest, hard-working guys in the National League. Dave Challinor (Hartlepool manager) was on with us a couple of times – he set up an account just for it!
“We got each player on for about a minute or so each. I wanted each player and club to get their message out there and they all spoke so sincerely and genuinely. It was brilliant.”
The campaign has almost reached its initial £5,000 target but Anderson is eager to keep raising as much as possible.
“Initially the concept was to do as many miles as possible, I probably did about 40-something in the first week but I stopped recording it as it became not about that,” he added. “I just want to thank everyone who helped with everything and everyone who has donated.
“I’ve got some more ideas and it’s definitely keeping me busy. The fact that we’re rivals but came together is great.”