Young footballers in Dundee have “smashed” a challenge to walk and run the distance between their home city and Barcelona to raise money for charity.
The Broughty United 2006 Pumas players were challenged to trek 12 miles a week in aid of Andy’s Man Club.
The intention was to hit the target for a month, which would have taken their combined tally to about 1,080 miles — the equivalent of travelling from Land’s End to John O’ Groats.
However, while adding up the miles completed using fitness app Strava, team coach Paul Burns found they were going to achieve the goal well ahead of time.
At that point the club challenged the players to go one step further and increased the target to 1,600 miles — roughly the distance to Barcelona.
Some of the players continued to walk, despite aching legs. One even pushed through a suspected broken toe to make up his quota.
The team have now raised £1,770 for Andy’s Man Club, which has been rounded up to £1,800 using club funds.
Paul said: “We’re really proud of the players. They really pushed through and got into it to get it done.
“When we saw they were going to smash the target we said to them, why not go a little bit further and they were all enthusiastic to do that.”
The challenge was originally going to take place for a month earlier this year. However, the deadline was extended due to the snow which forced the players to remain indoors.
Paul added: “We’re really proud of them. It’s really good for them to have done this, in the middle of a pandemic of all times.
“We will definitely use this to motivate them in future and remind them of what they achieved.”
The participants were asked to ensure they ran for the majority of their miles.
The inspiration behind it was to give the players something to do to keep their fitness levels up while lockdown puts a hold on traditional training sessions.
Andy’s Man Club’s work includes encouraging people, particularly men, to talk about their mental health.