Old Northamptonians cycle to St Austell
After beating Horsham 40-33 in last year’s Papa John’s Men’s Regional 2 Championship final, Old Northamptonians’ title defence began last Saturday against St Austell in Cornwall.
Most of the team and supporters travelled down by the usual means: a team bus and supporters’ coach. However, ex-first team players Adam Civil and Andy Johnson decided to cycle the 285 miles from the Old Northamptonians home ground to the South-West. To make the challenge even more difficult, the cyclists aimed to complete the ride in just 53 hours.
The duo were followed in a support van by Adam’s brother Richard and friend Phil Young to ensure that they had everything they needed for the epic journey. The motivation behind the challenge was to contribute towards first-team player Ben Rivans’ London Marathon fund, who is running this Sunday’s race to raise money for Brain Tumour Research after his father, Allan Rivans, died of a brain tumour last year.
Richard Civil, first team manager and cyclist support crew member, said: “We won our Papa John’s final at Twickenham last year and it was arguably one of the best days out in the club's history. Everyone at our club loves the tournament and when we were drawn against St Austell in Cornwall, we decided to embrace the challenge and the trip.
"Across the club, there are a few guys who like to cycle and have cycled to a few away games to support our teams, so we thought, why not do that for this game? We decided to raise money to contribute to Ben’s marathon fund. Ben was a mini and a junior at the club and now plays for the first team and we wanted to support him. What Ben, Adam and Andy are doing is incredible – I don’t envy them!”
The pair cycled 105 miles on day one, 124 miles on day two and faced a gruelling 56 miles with over 4,700 feet of climbing on the final day and made it just in time for kick off, with 15 minutes to spare.
They were rewarded for their efforts as they saw their club beat St Austell 41-33 to get their title defence off to a winning start. They face Lydney next and the journey will be considerably shorter, with the game taking place at Old Northamptonians' home ground!
