World's longest football match lasts 35 hoursTue May 04 12:09PM
The world's longest football match finished on Sunday after a remarkable 35 hours of play.An incredible 626 goals were scored as Cotswold All Stars beat Cambray FC 333-293 at Bishops Cleeve, Gloucestershire, in a match that enters the Guinness Book of Records as the longest ever played.
The Cotswold Church League sides kicked off at 6.30pm last Friday, with the final whistle at 6.30am on Sunday morning ending an epic charity match which raised £30,000 to help build a school in India.
And the match would have carried on for even longer had torrential rain not made conditions too dangerous to continue. Several players from the two 18-man squads had already been taken off with injuries.
"We started off quite fast because we were all so excited, but I was surprised by the pace of some of the lads hours into the game," Cambray FC's Andy Champion told the Gloucestershire Echo.
Each player was on the pitch for three hours at a time before a five-minute break to allow for substitutions and a brief respite, with the rest minutes being ticked off the final tally by officials from Guinness.
None of the squad members were allowed to leave the area of the pitch during the match, and tents were set up to offer shelter.
All Stars player Pete Sheppard admitted that he had been shocked at how tough the match was.
"We did a lot of intense training sessions but they don't prepare you for how long an ordeal this is," said the 24-year old.
"Ninety minutes is a long time but you are playing double that before you have a break. That last hour, everyone is really counting down the minutes."
