A group of footballers in Edinburgh are determined to break the world record for the longest 11-a-side match to raise money for the Craig Gowans Memorial Fund.
The match will hopefully last 105 hours beating the current world record which was set at St Mary’s, the home of Southampton FC, in June by two squads representing the Testlands Support Project, a Southampton charity,
The Memorial Fund was set up in the memory Craig who was died on 8 July 2005, when a net catcher he was instructed to move during a training session struck an overhead cable. The seventeen year old was only two weeks into his professional contract with the Bairns when the tragedy occurred.
As well as being a talented footballer, Craig was a straight A pupil and talented artist at Stewart’s Melville College, where he won the School’s Athletic Championship. He also had an unconditional offer to study Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, but chose a career in football.
The aim is to raise £37,000, 37 being Craig’s squad number at Falkirk and money raised will be used to fund enhancements to the new Sick Kids hospital at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France, specifically a state-of-the-art Snoezelen room in Craig’s name.The space will be a calming room with multi-sensory equipment providing a relaxing and stimulating space for children with sensory impairments.
The players will be joined by the current Scottish Cup holding manager, John ‘Yogi’ Hughes who was Craig’s manager at Falkirk as well as Former Hibs and Scotland boss Alex McLeish and former team-mates Scott Arfield and Thomas Scobbie.
The Craig Gowans Memorial Fund has so far raised almost £80,000 for the Sick Kids.
The game kicks off at 3pm today at Ainslie Park, the home of Spartans FC.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
