Achy breaky task
Footballing legends Alan Shearer and Robbie Savage today face aching limbs and squats galore as they continue on day two of their five day challenge for Sport Relief - The Battle of the Backsides. The contest will see the pair frantically race to be the first to sit on half the seats in the iconic Wembley Stadium - a brutal 45,000 seats each. This is the first time a challenge like this has ever been attempted in the UK and it’s all to raise funds for Sport Relief.
After waking up with aching bodies from kicking off their challenge yesterday - covering an absolutely breath-taking over 13,000 seats each – there’s all to play for this morning. As the day’s proceedings began Alan came from behind to take an early morning start, with the first stats of the day revealing Shearer storming into a 79 seat lead at 1089 seats so far today, with Savage trailing slightly at 1010.As the pair prepared to start their sitting session this morning Robbie said: “My buttocks are very, very sore, I feel absolutely horrendous. Add to that what a grumpy man like Alan Shearer is like first thing in the morning - he’s very, very snappy so I’ve gotta put up with him too. I don’t think myself or Alan realised the magnitude of the task, but it’s all for a fantastic cause. I hope it’s all worth it at the end.”
Veteran player Alan added: “I had to roll out of bed this morning, I couldn’t get out I was that sore. I really am aching all over. It’s a huge task, and I think when myself and Robbie agreed to do it a few months ago we thought it’d be hard but it’d be manageable. Yesterday was incredibly hard and today’s going to be even worse I think, because of the way we’re feeling this morning.
“Yesterday we were on about two seconds per seat and we’ve got to keep that going in between now and Friday afternoon to finish the challenge. Hopefully we’ll finish it.”
As well as going through two rounds of bum padding in day one alone, the technique employed by the boys has caused them to have their hands padded and strapped as the challenge puts pressure on places other than their posteriors. Now they’ve got to push through the pain barrier, get those aching limbs moving and keep their eyes on the prize as they battle through day two – will Alan remain in pole position, or can Robbie sneak up from behind?
To support them in this brutal task, as well as to be in with the chance to win some amazing prizes, the public can enter a competition at sportrelief.com/backsides. Each competition entry costs £5, and there are some incredible prizes up for grabs including tickets to see England play at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, two centre court tickets to Wimbledon 2nd round or tickets to One Direction on their UK tour. There’s a limited 90,000 entries available to represent the number of seats collectively sat on during the challenge.
Alan and Robbie are putting their bottoms on the line in the hope of raising a lifesaving sum of cash to help change the lives of vulnerable people in the UK and around the world.
Fans can follow all the action from Wembley over the five days with regular updates on BBC Radio 5 live and bbc.co.uk/backsides.