Delight as Wetherspoons The Game Facebook group surpasses 500,000 members

Chris Illman, who started Wetherspoons The Game on Facebook, celebrated the group membership surpassing 500,000 by announcing that he would be hosting a new food drive in Birmingham on January 29. With the milestone achieved, Chris is also planning on fulfilling a promise he made previously - to change his middle name when the half a million target was reached.

Chris said: "I have got to change my middle name to Spoons. I have to do it, it's been in papers and everything so it's not like I can ignore it, I have to do it unfortunately. My name will be Chris Spoons Illman, I will be CSI."

The games success is owed to Chris' initiative in utilising a quirk in the Wetherspoons app that allows you to order food and drink to a particular pub from anywhere in the country. Players will post on the group which Wetherspoons they are in and the table number they are sitting at. Other members will then donate drinks and food and it has created a community of pub goers who will buy each other rounds. Chris pins it's continued growing popularity to the message spreading further and people wanting to be involved in the charity side of it. Chris hosts games throughout the country where the food ordered is distributed to the homeless. Chris said: "It's really good, people are sharing it everywhere now and when people see us feeding the homeless they want to get onboard with it and help out as much as possible."

He added: "I want to say a big thank you to the moderators for all of their hard work, to the members for their support and thank you to everyone who has shared it and spread the word." Chris is now looking ahead to the next landmark: "We will hit a million and when we hit a million I have something special planned."

Wetherspoons The Game will be hosting their homeless food drive in Birmingham on January 29. Details on the game can be found on the Facebook Group.