Ade gets ready for the English Channel - please support!

LET this be a lesson learnt by everyone – don’t come up with any ambitious ideas after a few pints of cider.

Former Ivel Barbarians rugby player Adrian Radford is all set to tackle his biggest challenge yet and there will not be an oval-shaped ball in sight!

Ade, as he is better known, will be setting off tomorrow (Wednesday, August 14) on the swim of a lifetime. He is hoping to raise a bucket load of cash by swimming the English Channel.

The Civil Servant worker, who lives at Montacute, said on his Just Giving website page that it was in September 2011 that he and a pal came up with the idea.

“It was around 10.30pm and after about seven pints of cider that we decided to do something for a local children’s charity,” he said.

“Both of us being rather competitive also agreed that whatever we did needed to ‘trump’ anything our other retired rugby friends had done.

“The choice was limited by the condition of our rugby battered bodies, but after much soul searching and a few more ciders we came to the conclusion that swimming the Channel would do it and should attract enough attention to raise around £5,000!”

PHOTO: Adrian Radford.

They soon sobered up in the cold light of day and reconsidered their crazy adventure and blamed it on the cider.

But the damage had been done as they had posted it on Facebook and Ade’s mum, having read about her son’s plans, was proud as punch as to what he was proposing to do.

“I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was the drink speaking and I proceeded to dig myself a real deep hole by saying this is something I have always dreamt of doing,” he said.

While his drinking pal was able to withdraw from the plans easily, Ade has been training very hard in order to make his mum proud and also raise thousands of pounds for the British Institute for Brain Injured Children charity which is based near Bridgwater.

BIBIC, which celebrated its 40^th birthday last year, provides specialist support to children who have a brain-related condition or learning disability.

His planned crossing was scheduled for August 12, but has been delayed – but latest reports suggest he is ready for the off tomorrow (Wednesday, August 14) with an estimated time of around 15 hours.

Anyone wanting to sponsor Ade can do so at www.justgiving.com/Adrian-Radford .

All we can say at the Yeovil Press is – GOOD LUCK ADE!

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