Year 2 Sport and Exercise Science students are fast approaching their annual residential trip to Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

The students will work with United Through Sport to deliver coaching sessions and a sports tournament for local schools within the townships. A vital part of the planning for this trip is fundraising, which so far has included cake sales, sponsored spinning sessions and bag packs a Morrisons in Bridgwater. This fundraising goes towards lunch for all of the children on the day of the tournament, trophies and additional equipment. This trip is a vital part of the students study programme allowing them to develop essential skills and qualities that will enable them to be successful at university and their subsequent careers. 

The current cohort this year decided that they wanted to challenge themselves through completing a 24 hour football match. 20 students and the three members of staff for the trip, Alex Leach, Roy Davies and Carly Martin took on the challenge of playing a game of 5-a-side football for 24 hours. Between them they had to keep the game going by playing in shifts for the full 24 hours. The tournament started at 12am on Thursday 26 January and finished at 12am on Friday 27January. 

The match was incredibly challenging and was an opportunity for the students to demonstrate their resilience and teamwork. Some students thrived more than others, with Tom Cowd and Katie Withers running constantly and seemingly never running out of energy.

When the game finished there was a great sense of achievement from all those that took part with all demonstrating high levels of pride. This was exemplified due to a very supportive crowd who came to watch the last hour of the tournament.

On completion of the tournament, Reece Malcom, a student going on the trip said,

“I thouroughly enjoyed the challenge, however, playing football for 24 hours is hard work. This isn't something that many get to complete in their life. Now with the trip so close, it makes it more exciting!” 

The students also ran a 'guess the amount of goals scored' competition. The total amount of goals scored in 24 hours was 1652 – which is an impressive 69 goals an hour! The competition was won by Tina Woodhead with a guess of 1577 goals. 

On completion of a successful match, Course Leader Alex Leach said,

“It was great to see the students working together as a team to overcome such a gruelling challenge. Each student demonstrated excellent levels of resilience and determination toward the completion of this match. I would like to thank Jack Hamblin, Sam Reilly, Mark Fitzmaurice, Bob Carmeichal and the college support team for helping to make this match possible”.