• GUINNESS WORLD RECORD-SETTING RUGBY MATCH TO BE PLAYED LATER TODAY
• Match referee Lee Mears (and rugby posts) flying in today
• Match expected to be played at 7.30pm (UK time)
Andrew Walker from Dumfries, along with fellow scots Steven Turnbull, John Houston and Fergus Davidson have reached the Magnetic North Pole! They will be playing their record-setting rugby match tonight (our time).
Eleven challengers and their support team of polar guides have reached the Magnetic North Pole after five days of trekking across the Arctic sea ice.
The Operations Room at the children’s charity of rugby, Wooden Spoon, received a call overnight confirming the news.
Their two team captains Ollie Phillips and Tim Stimpson were able to lead their teams to the Pole in time to pitch their tents in the evening.
All the challengers are said to be in great spirits after enduring some really tough conditions during the previous 24 hours as the weather worsened. They had faced some large rubble fields and pressure ridges, requiring hours of hard work and team effort to cross, leaving them all exhausted.
After sleeping, they teams will get up to ready an area of ice as a rugby pitch.
A plane carrying Lee Mears, the former England hooker, and a small group of supporters will fly in later today.
Lee will be the official match referee for the challengers’ world record setting rugby game.
The plane will also be bringing specially constructed rugby posts (designed to be light weight and portable in a small aircraft).
The challenge is hoping to raise over £300,000 for Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby supporting disabled and disadvantaged children throughout the UK and Ireland.
Each of the teams learnt vital techniques they need to trek and survive in the harsh conditions and are carrying all their kit, food and supplies in sledges which they haul behind them. The teams, who are sleeping in tents out on the sea ice have been consuming around 6,000 calories a day to enable their bodies to fight off the cold and battle on with the demanding trek itself.
