Update: September 2007
Charity Football 3, Ballerinas versus Sumos, is here at last! To read all about it, please click here.
Greetings and Salutations
Welcome to Charity Football, the place where harebrained, alcohol fuelled ideas come to life on the football pitch in order to help raise money for charity.
We stage football matches with a difference, where the quality of skills on display are far less important than how stupid everyone looks. To see quite how stupid, take a look at our picture gallery.
This website is a record of all that we have accomplished so far and a place to discuss what we hope to achieve in the future. Check out the journal to read about why we're doing this, the games we've played so far and the preparations for our next game in the summer of 2007. You can also read through all the press coverage our games have received here.
Thanks to the considerable effort, enthusiasm and willingness to make complete and utter fools of themselves of everyone who participated in our latest event, we raised over £3,000 for Cancer Research UK, which isn't too bad at all for an afternoon of silliness.
This year, although it will be difficult, we'd like to raise even more. If you'd like to support us, please click here to find out how.
Alternatively, if you'd like to get in touch with us about anything at all, be it an idea for another game, offers of support, or you just want to say hello, you can find out how to contact us here.
Do something a little bit bonkers
Life’s so much more interesting when you do something a little bit out of the ordinary, as the people who have played in the football matches you’re reading about here will testify:
“I can testify that my life has been so much more interesting since I played football dressed as a Smurf”, says Paul from Woodley. “Since then”, continues Paul, “I’ve got married, been to New York, got a new job and learnt that blue body paint takes a week or so to come off your armpits. In my mind, I’m convinced that all of these things were direct consequences of my dressing up as a Smurf. Well, at least one of them was, anyway.”
So there you have it. Doing something a little bit bonkers is good for you, opening up opportunities that might not otherwise come your way.
If you can take one thing away with you from reading through this website, we’d like it to be for you to have the confidence to take that stupid idea you once came up with down the pub and see it through to a conclusion. Not everyone will get what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, but you’ll have a lot of fun on the way, which is all that matters.
If you need any more convincing, we can thoroughly recommend reading about the adventures of Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace. Some years ago, Dave and Danny were flatmates. One drunken night, they made a bet that Dave wouldn’t be able to find 54 other people called Dave Gorman (one for every card in the pack, including jokers). With the gaunlet thrown down, Dave then proceeded to drag Danny all over the world finding other Dave Gormans, or Gormen, as it were. Yes that’s right, two grown men travelled round the world, running up exorbitant credit card bills in process, meeting people who shared the same name as one of them. What a great way to spend a part of your life.
Since then, Dave’s conducted an important astrological experiment to discover whether his life would be better if he followed the advice of the stars, gone on a Googlewhack adventure and grown a beard. For his part, Danny has accidentally started a cult (sorry, collective) and said “yes” to every opportunity that presented itself to him. He hasn't grown a beard though.
We can’t recommend reading about this madness enough. If people did more things like this, the world would be a much better place. Anyway, you can get yourself a copy of their rather eccentric adventures here: