It was an early start on a bright Saturday morning as Tackle Africa trustees and volunteers arrived from 7am to set up. Players began to filter on to the common almost immediately and as they arrived were quickly put to work erecting nine 5-a-side pitches and 11 marquees. This was to be no ordinary tournament! The football officially kicked off at 8.30am, and play ended just before 8.30pm, with the rain holding off for most of the day. Along with almost constant football, teams were required to provide a ref in their breaks, ensuring the spirit of fair play was (mostly!) maintained throughout the day.

Games started in the morning at a frenetic pace, with many teams appearing not to be pacing themselves for a long day of five-a-side football. Teams were engaged in two separate group stages, leading to a knock out stage where nobody appeared to get knocked out and onto a final. With that much football and that many goals, it was beyond human ability that it could be run by a mere man, and genius volunteer Tim Dawes created the mother of all spreadsheets to hold it all together perfectly.

Despite being played a full 12 hours after the first game, the final was as competitive and hard fought and full on as any game all day. Hot favourites Puretown had most of the possession for the match, but a resilient Surreal Madrid held them at bay for 30 punishing minutes. As reward for their sterling rear guard action, Surreal Madrid emerged victorious from the ensuing penalties, leaving winning captain Stephen Findlay to collect the trophy. A cruel way perhaps to lose the final for Puretown, who were also runners up in the 2006 Marathon, but drama for the spectators to the final minute.

Though the football had slowed considerably by the end of the day (and the third place play off in particular was played at a snails pace), there were no major injuries, thanks no doubt in a large part to having a physiotherapist on site. It is likely however, that there were a few sore legs the next day, as one player who had been wearing a pedometer registered that he had run nearly 30 kilometres over the course of the day!

Tom Colborne, Tackle Africa trustee, goalkeeper in 3rd placed team Hardly Athletic and organiser of the Football Marathon commented after the event:

“This has been the best Football Marathon yet, with the highest number of players involved. Everything ran incredibly smoothly, and despite the agony everyone seemed to really enjoy the day. Most importantly the event will boost Tackle Africa’s profile and raise vital funds so that we can help as many people as possible next year.”

Ben Maitland, Tackle Africa’s founder and Chair was keen to praise the players’ efforts afterwards saying:

“The effort those involved have put in today will help in a very real way to push Tackle Africa’s work forward in the coming year. Congratulations to all those involved.”

Funds raised by the event have now passed the £50,000 mark – enough to fund a whole year�s programme of Tackle Africa football and HIV/AIDS projects in Africa. Just as important as the money has been the interest from the players, with some of them now set to go on coaching trips in 2008 – helping Tackle Africa put the money into action. Planning is already well underway for next year and the event will be even bigger and better, with negotiations under way to host it at a football league ground!

With the aim of our adventure being solely to raise invaluable funds for Tackle Africa, Siren was to take the serious business of walking, well, very seriously. With a week until our intrepid adventure was to start, Team Leader Pressley presented us each with emergency ration Kendal Mint Cake and a whistle (with the sole instruction of, “blow 6 times if you are in trouble”). A good start, but not a lot of the mint cake made it out the office. In the event that we got lost (read on for more) a compass was presented to Lauren and Michael. Apparently Lauren used to know how to use one, and Michael, well Michael just looks like he knows.

Destination one was the far flung City that is Glasgow. It didn’t take long for Glaswegian Craig to revert his Scottish twang to an incomprehensible level, resulting in a lot of one sided conversations and nodding from the rest of the team. You could be mistaken to believe we were already in the depths of haggis roaming country, however as we set out on the long windy road to Fort William, accompanied by a selection of suitable explorer tunes pumping from our large white minibus, we got further and further from civilisation. A statement disagreed by any Fort William local who’d state they were the pivot of all activity, but many appeared never to have stepped more than 5ft from their local watering hole. One word – tumbleweed. They did however serve Magners, so we were able to fuel up for Mountain No.1 – Ben Nevis.

Starting in the official 3 Peaks fashion by touching the water at Loch Linnhe in the late hours of Thursday we were set for an early start. At a height of 1344m, Ben Nevis stands as Britain’s highest mountain. “Pfft” we thought as we set out at 7am on Friday morning with a slight skip in our stride. But with the sun already testing us by 10am, our bounce was replaced with more of a stumble, lots of perspiration, accompanied with long and pensive looks upwards. “Where exactly is the top?” A question that was heard repeatedly over the following three days. But, unperturbed by the numerous slightly psychopathic fell runners, we kept ploughing on over boulders, shingle and exciting rock forms pointed out by our resident Aussie geology obsessive (conversational topics were only going to get stranger the higher we climbed). Luckily the summit eventually appeared and after a few snowball fights we celebrated with a sip of tea each (thank you Michael, the official mountaineering expert), and a few MMS videos sent to those Siren folk not with us by ever savvy Siren.

6 hours later, we were back at base, greeted by a beaming Pressley and a wee dram of Famous Grouse. Chris, who could be mistaken as one of the more intrepid climbers judging by his outfit, called time and we all climbed into the bus heading for the drive to Keswick for night two.

Now, it could be said that some team members were maybe regretting stepping foot on the plane at this stage as cries of “I can’t believe we’ve got another two to climb” were heard that night. Standard responses however were along the lines of “ah, the other two are much easier, no worries, she’ll be right mate”. Lies, all lies. Mountain No. 2 was apparently the lowest of the 3 Peaks, Scafell Pike, at a height of 978m. But due to unforeseen circumstances (or sheer incompetence, which ever way you look at it) – beginning inadvertently at the incorrect start point, failing to read a map correctly (if at all), managing to circumnavigate Scafell and the surrounding area twice (at least it felt like it) plus loosing one member of the team resulting in the team bus having to detour across Cumbria on a rescue mission – this mountain was certainly the most challenging for us.

Again the sun was relentless as we picked our way over the rather boulder clad route, with a few tears and looks of distress en route. It did however bring out the best cry of the trip from Katy, “Essex don’t do mountains!” Classic. But it seems Chris managed to put his rather pristine boots to good use, walking almost as far as us, with a day of pacing back and forth, fearing Team Siren (equating to his whole company) had plummeted from mountain and were never to return. He likened it to being an expectant father – maybe we’d got a little over familiar to take things to this level.

We arrived in Wales at almost the break of dawn…3am and the seagulls were squawking already. Not being the most time conscious team like the sub 24hr lunatics we continuously stepped aside for, this wasn’t really quite to schedule. As we fell out the bus, limbs unable to support us any longer, we were in Llandudno. Less that 5 hours sleep and we were back staring at the mini bus thinking we were trapped in some rather painful version of Ground Hog Day. And damn, was the bus beginning to smell.

Walking by this stage was becoming lower on some people�s list of priorities with a few suggestions of incorporating the Snowdon train, but that was soon knocked back buy the more resilient members and we set off to the start point ready for a walk to peak No.3, at just 1,085m. But where was the start again? Another savvy idea was to invest in a Tom-Tom rather than use the AA’s perfectly good system called a map. This presented a problem when the destination entered was ‘Snowdonia’ – surely this is a region rather than a place (pointed out bit too late)? So Tom-Tom, ever obedient took us to the central point of Snowdonia via a path previously only ever frequented by sheep and other lost folk. We secretly hoped we’d actually driven to the summit of Snowdon as we appeared to be higher than all surrounding mountains, alas no, just another minor time delay as we retraced our steps to the start point.

Slightly knocked by yet more OTT sweaty youths sprinting from cars left, right and centre hoping to complete the 3rd and final peak in 24hrs, we shuffled out the car park with the familiar pained gazes upwards. Easy is it? Well that really depends what you are comparing it to – Everest, yes. Sunday Roast in local pub, quite frankly, no! Never to be defeated by more rocks, heat and an abundance of midges we finally made it to the top and God did we look relieved – standing superiorly looking down on those arriving by train, with a chilled can of Fosters in hand. Plus, news arrived that we had just reached our target! Any previously pained faces were now glowing with pride (or was that just sweat?).

The route down felt a little unnecessary really, so many of us took to running, our legs unable to stop until we collapsed in front of the minibus – which again came with a proud Pressley and a fresh supply of chilled beer, plus (as we thoroughly deserved it) some bubbly. As we chinked our plastic cups and each touched Lake XXXXXXX (the official end to the challenge) the relief hit us and we suddenly had a whole lot of love for one another with more sweaty hugs and “I love you’s” than previously ever imagined. And with Take That’s ‘Never Forget’ (our theme tune of choice), blaring from the speakers we set off back to London rather sad it was all over, similar to the feeling you got aged 8 after a parent free week away with Brownies.

So we did it. A walk in the park it wasn’t. An emotional, sweaty, fantastic way to get to know your colleagues (potentially a little too well), it was. And most importantly we raised invaluable funds for Tackle Africa with our first of many fundraising initiatives for this small charity.