While the only record Town seem likely to claim at the moment is the fewest points collected in August in any season, Joe Ward tells us about a more impressive record-breaking attempt taking place in Ipswich this weekend.
The final whistle went and they handed back to the BBC studio. It was the longest game of football the world had ever witnessed. Ipswich nil, Helsingborg nil. OK, so it wasn’t anywhere near world record breaking in its longevity but for all of us up at the fortress that night it really felt like it and no doubt the bosses at the Queen’s television network congratulated themselves on disrupting their schedule with such a sporting marvel.
However, this weekend Suffolk will genuinely witness an attempt to break the world record for a football match that may very well lead to a resurgence in work for serial woop-wooper Kriss Akabusi and the skirt magician Cheryl Baker. For the older readers please replace with Messrs Castle and McWhirter et al.
These are the rules. Eighteen players per team, rolling substitutions and a time span of at least 36 hours is needed to get into the pint-of-the-black-stuff sponsored almanac. The location is Orwell High School in Felixstowe and with a kick-off time scheduled for 10 o’clock in the morning on Saturday with the final whistle is planned to be met with much needed relief and euphoric exhaustion at around six o’clock on Monday morning.
That’s right, we’re talking nearly two whole continuous days of the beautiful game or at the very least a game given the amount of tired legs, blisters and sleep deprivation-based clangers that are certain to accompany such an undertaking. To give you a ball park figure of potential ‘goals, goals and goals’ the last game ended 284 to 255, so if Mr Keane is looking for a 20-goal a season striker this could be the game to scout.
The man behind this (delete where applicable) experiment/torture/fundraising is Ross Wishart and with 35 other faithful athletes he hopes to raise a substantial amount of money for the Evening Star’s ‘Have a Heart’ campaign which is collecting money as well as raising awareness for a new specialist catheter laboratory to treat patients with serious heart conditions right here in Ipswich.
So, this weekend please come along and show your support for this good cause and you may even end up baring witness to footballers destined for the record books. Making them better than Kaka. Fact!
There are a still few places remaining on the teams so if anyone fancies participating they can contact Ross Wishart on: R_Wishart@Sky.Com or through http://www.worldrecordfootballattempt.webs.com.