No coasting for rowers

A team of six men are to attempt to row more than 1,000 miles from John O'Groats to Land's End.

The crew, made up of businessmen and a former Leicester Tigers player, will set off on their gruelling journey next summer.

Their target is to raise £150,000 for the Loughborough children's hospice Rainbows, the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust and the RNLI.

So far the team is made up of former Tigers star Matt Poole, managing director of Leicester jewellers Dominic Gomersall, Andy Lyon, the senior partner at the East Midlands office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ian Mattioli, chief executive of Enderby pension firm Mattioli Woods, and 26-year-old Paul Bassett, who will captain the crew.

The final member will be a Leicester sporting celebrity. His identity cannot be revealed yet.

Tigers legends Martin Johnson and Austin Healy will both cox the rowers when they pass through the Leicester leg of the voyage.

They hope the journey will take less than three weeks to complete.

The 1,097-mile route takes them down the east coast of Scotland in the North Sea to Sunderland.

They will head inland to York and pass through Nottingham and Leicester before heading along the River Severn into the Bristol Channel and down the coast to Land's End.

The idea for the painstaking journey came about when a group of friends were showing off about a fund-raising bike ride to Paris.

Paul said: "Dominic came up with the idea to do this after he heard about his mates' trip to Paris.

"At first he suggested running the London Marathon but after a while we got talking about rowing.

"I grew up in Cornwall and raced a lot for my club until I was about 19, so I was keen to do it.

"I'm really looking forward to it. There's a really good bunch of guys involved which will make it easier. Dominic has even turned one of the offices at work into a gym with rowing machines so we can train on our lunch break together."

The Samantha Dickson Trust was chosen by Mr Gomersall after he underwent an operation five years ago to remove a brain tumour.

He said: "It will be the fifth anniversary since I had my brain tumour removed, so the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust is a natural choice. Rainbows is a fantastic place providing wonderful help for families. It is a cause close to the hearts of many of our customers.

"We chose RNLI for obvious reasons."

The fund-raising kicks off on Sunday, at Welford Road, during the Tigers' annual open day. The team will be at the ground with their boat and will set individual one-minute distances on rowing machines – and invite Tigers fans to try to beat them.