PCA PRESS RELEASE
PCA President set to take on 193-mile hike for PCA Professional Cricketers' Trust and Graham Gooch Scholarship.
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Professional Cricketers’ Association President Graham Gooch will travel to Cumbria this weekend ahead of dipping his toe off the coast of St Bees to mark the start of a 13 day challenge in aid of the PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust and Graham Gooch Scholarship.
The former England captain is set to take on the famous a 193-mile walk from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. Known as ‘the Wainwright Coast to Coast walk’, Gooch will be joined by his partner and three friends and is aiming to raise £20,000 to be split between the two charities.
Gooch, who previously donated £50,000 to the PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust from his Scholarship as part of the PCA’s 50th anniversary has already received generous support from ThoughtSpot who are sponsoring the walk to take fundraising over £16,000 of his target which will support two charities which are close to his heart.
The PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust is part of the PCA’s commitment to helping former and current players and their dependants in times of hardship and upheaval or to readjust to the world beyond the game.
The charity provides support in a huge variety of ways, both reactively and increasingly proactively with a drive to help and educate PCA members on all health and wellbeing issues key in helping players to negate problems further down the line.
Gooch was named PCA President in March 2018 and has run his own Scholarship programme for fifteen years under the umbrella of the Essex Cricket Foundation.
Having previously played for the county for 24 years, Gooch’s Scholarship supports initiatives including the Essex Cricket Academy with the charity funding their recent Indian coaching camp in February 2018. The Scholarship frequently sends young Essex players on overseas coaching and playing tours, trips that Alastair Cook, Ravi Bopara and most recently Aaron Beard have benefited from.
Embarking on the hike which gets under way on Monday September 17 and is scheduled to end with his toes in the North Sea on Saturday September 29, the 65-year-old is looking forward to the challenge.
“It’s going to need a massive effort from everyone, but it’s something we’re all really looking forward to,” Gooch said.
“We’re all ready to go, we’ve done all our training, it’s come around really quickly and we can’t wait to get started on Sunday.
“We’re raising money for two good causes in the PCA Professional Cricketers’ Trust and my own Scholarship.
“The Professional Cricketers’ Trust is an excellent cause looking after current and past cricketers with welfare, education and in times of hardship. My Scholarship has been running now for 16 years, it started off very small and has grown to a lot bigger than I imagined.
“Everyone has been really generous so far in supporting us with donations for our Just Giving page and I can’t thank them enough.”
To donate visit ‘Goochie’s Coast 2 Coast 2018’ Just Giving page, where there will also be an option to include Gift Aid.
For more information on how to get involved contact Sam Relf – sam.relf@thepca.co.uk
