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Balham home to a new Guinness World Record!
Chestnut Grove Academy last week played host to an impressive and enduring attempt at the longest continuous game of 5-a-side football ever played.
The attempt saw 16 young footballers led by Theo Strong, including a late but welcome addition to the squad, Mr Malik, who is a teacher at the Academy, attempt to play football for between 72 and 75 hours in order to beat the 2015 record of 70 hours and 3 minutes whilst raising over £30,000 for young people's charity Football Beyond Borders (FBB).
Football Beyond Borders (FBB) uses the power of football as an educational tool to inspire young people to achieve their goals and make their voices heard. This academic year they are delivering the programme to 18 schools across South and East London. The fundraising target of £30,000 would enable them to extend this to between 3 and 4 further schools.
The game started at 8pm on the evening of Wednesday 26th October, was being live streamed over Facebook and also being refereed by FA qualified refs. Balham Daily PRSS arrived to see both teams looking surprisingly fresh after the first 24hrs on Thursday, although apparently the first 90 minutes was played at such a pace that gave everyone their only moment of doubt...needless to say they slowed down.
We spoke with the Captain and World Record Attempt organiser's sister, Lucy, who explained that each player would take shifts of 5 hours and then sleep for 3 hours before returning to the pitch to continue for 5 hours and so on. This was somewhat a family affair for her as both her brothers were playing and she also had her husband and newborn there supporting the teams too (we also had the pleasure of meeting very proud 'Mum' prior to the final whistle!).
Balham Daily PRSS returned on the final evening to a sports hall that smelt of Haribo and Deep Heat to see the elated teams smash the record with lots of support from friends, family, and supporters.
The final score stood at White 1426 - 1407 Black and at the time of writing the funds raised for FBB stands at a whopping £13,217.
Upon speaking with Tom, head of communications for FBB and Jasper, head of partnerships, for FBB it is beautifully clear that this is a charity that truly cares about supporting local communities through their ongoing work with young people.
Their gratitude to Chestnut Grove Academy for hosting the event and their appreciation for the players and everyone who came along to support them was a clear signal as to why not just 1 person but 16 people would give up 3 days and nights (plus countless training sessions) and endure 72 hours of continuous football for them.