Worthing smash their 43k fundraising target- and run 43km to celebrate

A few weeks ago we featured an interview with Worthing owner George Dowell, as the club embarked on an ambitious fundraising project which hoped to make forty three thousand pounds towards ground improvements. Shortly after the Crowdfunder went live, manager Adam Hinshelwood made a pledge that if the total raised reached twenty thousand pounds by 3PM on Saturday 23rd May- just over a week after it started- that he would run the forty three kilometres from his home town of Selsey to the Crucial Environmental Stadium.

As he explained to the Sussex Argus at the time:

“I had a crazy idea just to help get things ticking along that, if they got to £20,000 by next Saturday, I’d run from home to the ground in full Worthing kit along with a couple of colleagues.

At the time it was about £5,000 so we thought we would give them a little push.

“Forty-eight hours later, it was up to £17,000 already. I don’t know if my knees are ready for this!"

Well it turned out that, dodgy knees or not, a promise was a promise- so last Saturday, in searing heat, Adam, son Jack, coach Cam Morrison, kitman Stu Evans and player (and of course former Brighton & Hove Albion teammate) Dean Hammond set off to pound the pavements of Sussex, with support from well-wishers and the Rebel Yell Podcast team (follow them here). And a number of painful hours later, each of them reached Woodside Road.

The club actually reached their forty three thousand pound target the day before Adam and friends pulled on their trainers and applied their blister plasters. The cash, along with ninety-six thousand pounds from the Premier League Football Stadia Improvement Fund, and another eleven thousand from a generous corporate donor, will allow the club to replace the floodlights, and revamp the North East corner of the ground with new food provision, a new toilet block, a new bar, and modernised turnstiles.

Congratulations to all at the club. You can read an interview with Adam, given after the run, courtesy of the Worthing Herald- here. Image courtesy of Adam- and taken before the running started, which is why they all look so fresh!