Chairman's son in charity trek to Villa Park

From the archive, first published Monday 8th Aug 2005.

CHARITY fundraiser Andrew Gartside will kick off Wanderers' away fixtures by going for a walk - lasting six days and covering 104 miles.

He is heading to Aston Villa's ground in Birmingham for the first match of the new season.

The 20-year-old son of Wanderers chairman Phil Gartside will be joined by family friend Chris Eyres and a former Mayor of Bolton, Cllr John Walsh.

The event fulfils a pledge made by Andrew to walk to the first away game to raise money for the CANtreat charity he has started.

Andrew is still recovering from Non-Hodgkinís Lymphoma, cancer of the immune system.

The CANtreat charity aims to improve conditions for continuing treatment for cancer patients in the region by establishing dedicated chemotherapy units.

His target is £1 million, with the first recipient Halton Hospital in Cheshire, but he wants to help fund a similar unit at the Royal Bolton Hospital afterwards.

Already, he has had thousands of pounds pledged towards the project and more is likely to come from the official launch of the charity at the family's Northwich home.

But the small group setting off from the Reebok on Monday morning - complete with official send-off from manager Sam Allardyce, mascot Lofty and Wanderers players - will resort to the simple system of collecting donations from the public in buckets.

First stop for the entourage will be Bolton town centre, then on to Burnden and then Leigh Rugby Club, before setting off for Warrington where on Tuesday rugby stars will show their support for the charity at the Warrington Wolvesí ground .

Then there are long days of walking for the plucky trio before they arrive at Wolverhampton Wanderers' stadium on Friday and a meeting, hopefully, with Wolves manager Glenn Hoddle. Then it's on to Birmingham.

On Saturday, they will leave the Alexander Stadium at Perry Barr at 12.30pm to walk the final one-and-a-half miles to Villa Park. And they want Wanderers' fans to join this last lap of the journey to help them collect money and boost funds.

"Half of all the money raised on the walk through Bolton Wanderers will go to Derian House children's hospice at Chorley, so I hope that lots of people will join us for this," said Andrew.

He is looking forward to the walk, although he admits he has "not trained at all". And John Walsh, a keen walker, says he has a plan he believes will get them through the miles: "We'll be walking from pub to pub," he said.

Anyone who would like to raise sponsorship money by making the last leg of the journey can use the sponsorship form on the Wanderers official web site. To make a donation or find out more about CANtreat, call the charity directly on 01925-243958.

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