AFC Portchester Veterans pair raise more than £3,000 for Friends Fighting Cancer with 12-hour endurance challenge

Keith Ashton gets a leg massage from Hannah Cronshaw during a brief break from the 12-hour endurance challenge

Two AFC Portchester Veterans players battled through the pain barrier to raise money for the Friends Fighting Cancer charity.

Both Pete Sanderson and Keith Ashton completed a 12-hour endurance challenge at Portchester Recreation Ground on Saturday for a great cause.

The duo, who have so far helped raise more than £3,000 through their event, covered over 106 miles between them.

They ran and walked around the perimeter of Portchester Rec and the neighbouring golf course from 7am until completing the challenge in AFC Portchester's Crest Finance Stadium some 12 hours later.

AFC Portchester Veterans pair Pete Sanderson, left, and Keith Ashton, closest to camera, prior to their 12-hour endurance challenge with Dan Mortimer, third left, Vicky Ashton, fourth left, Lee Jones and Hannah Cronshaw, far right

Sanderson, who along with Ashton formed part of the AFC Portchester Veterans squad who ran a combined 1,000 miles to raise money for the town's Food Pantry project in March, was overwhelmed by the support the pair received.

He said: 'The adrenaline and the support was fantastic and that’s what got us through - seeing the amount of people who were there and supported us throughout the day.

'The messages of support afterwards have been quite hard to read. We just thought of it as a way to raise money.

'A lot of people said, ‘I don’t think you understand how much you’ve done for the charity and people’ - and we probably never will do.

'It goes to show just a little bit of effort can go a long way.

‘It was amazing. We didn’t realise how much support we had and there were so many people who came and helped for the day.'

Sanderson - who has now completed four running challenges for charity since the first national lockdown - and Ashton have raised more than £650 and £2,100 respectively on their JustGiving fundraising pages for the event.

Meanwhile, an additional sum of around £450 was received in cash donations on the day.

Donations can still be made to both Sanderson's and Ashton's JustGiving pages for the challenge.

To pledge your support, visit either of these links:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/peter-sanderson12

or https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/keithashtonffc2021