The week before a World Cup starts is arguably the best bit of it. No shortage of great highlight montages and retrospective articles from past tournaments, coupled with the joy at the prospect of back to back football for every evening from here to eternity. Of course the reality is that the unrelenting football soon begins to grate. And towards the end of the first week, roughly 27 minutes into the second round of group games and the competition’s first tense ‘must-not-lose’ half-way line-off, you’ll find yourself looking longingly at the TV Guide.
But let’s postpone the crushing despair of reality for a bit longer and get back to the excitement of it all, which we decided to try and ride atop of whilst also doing something good for a local cause. As such we’re having a World Cup sweepstake with a bit of a difference; £3 in, but only £1 goes to the prize kitty.
The remaining £64 we decided to donate, to something local, worthwhile and connected to the tournament. Our choice, came from remembering this sobering and depressing story from the last World Cup relating to the rise in domestic violence as England were eliminated. As such we chose to donate the money from our sweep to Doncaster Women’s Aid and will be posting a cheque off as soon as possible. It is not much, but hopefully it will help, and by tweeting and writing about why we chose this charity we might make some people who it would seem can’t think, to remember it is just a game.
So that’s the why, here’s the how as we asked our twitter followers to get involved. Soon enough we had 32 entrants so all that remained was to draw out the teams. Which we did. And we filmed it as well. Look.
Of course if you don’t want to waste nine minutes of your life watching my hands go in and out of plastic cups chewing-gummed to the floor beneath a London park bench, then you can just take our word for it and view the result of the draw below. Here’s who got who in our Charity World cup sweepstake.
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| @MrCawth | @Cynderness | @thorne_viking | @Gazz_Long |
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| @cjwcymru | @IrishMackem93 | @TonyCSGreenall | @RussH808 |
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| @onedavebamber | @TheExiledRobin | @drfc_pete1993 | @mirkobolesan |
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| @putajumperon | @tiertwofooty | @littlenorwich | @LucyBurke |
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| @jamesjammcmahon | @JennyL0786 | @RalphDavies1 | @Reedy1905 |
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| @DrMuttley | @IamDaley | @gillinghamrover | @bloxhamangel |
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| @ChrisDonald92 | @cat_daisy | @jallison31 | @vivarovers |
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| @glossopluke | @WestStandBogs | @Lee_Hodgkinson | @biggazlaw |
The winning team will net one of our participants £20, the owner of the runners-up gets £6, whilst a semi-final place will be enough to get two of our players their £3 back. thanks again to all taking part, and best of luck to them as they fall by the wayside to the dominating superior force of the USA… USA! USA! USA!
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