Southampton Football Club Legend Francis Benali is about to set out on a charity run that will take him around all 20 of the Premier league grounds.
Francis Benali has always given a lot to Southampton, whether its been to its football club where he gave 15 years of service during a playing career that saw him make 369 appearances between 1988-2003 plus countless amounts of time in behind the scenes roles or whether its to the local community where he has never been slow to help local charities etc.
Now he is asking the Southampton community to help him by sponsoring him in a charity run that will take him around all 20 Premier League Clubs starting at Newcastle United and ending where else but at St Mary's.
There is of course a reason behind why he is going to take on this gruelling challenge so I will let Franny tell you himself.
"I have been asked this question a lot over the last couple of weeks by family, friends and potential sponsors and I have had a hard time answering it really.
Maybe I should explain first what I am doing. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to run around all 20 Premier League Clubs starting at Newcastle and finishing at my home ground Southampton FC. I have done a lot of charitable work for Cancer Research UK over a number of years but I have never raised a substantial amount of cash to really make a dent.
Committing myself to such a large challenge which will test me to my limit, and probably beyond, both physically and mentally will hopefully inspire people to donate to the very worthy cause. As a family we have been touched by this terrible disease, with my mum having to have a full hysterectomy after cancer cells were discovered, my wife lost both of her grandfather’s to cancer as well as so many friends whose families have been affected.
It felt natural to want to help and I wanted to do that personally. After years of keeping match fit and living a healthy lifestyle, a physical challenge seemed the best way of raising the large amount of money for Cancer Research UK that I wanted.
I felt that it would also inspire and encourage others to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Also, this route hasn’t been done before so the sense of achievement at the end will be amazing! I would just really love all the support and encouragement anyone can give me so that I can complete this challenge and really make a contribution to raise the money needed to help beat Cancer." -
Find out more about the run and how you can sponsor Franny below