Graham Gooch OBE has completed his mammoth 14-day, 193-mile walk from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire in aid of the PCA Benevolent Fund and the Graham Gooch Scholarship.
The PCA Benevolent Fund 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, who was named PCA President in March 2018, has also run his own Scholarship programme for 15 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.
Gooch, who previously donated £50,000 to the PCA Benevolent from his scholarship, was aiming to raise £20,000 to be split across both charities.
Last night, Gooch surpassed the £20,000 mark and the figure raised now stands at a hugely impressive £20,271.
Gooch has blogged his entire trip, with diary entries and video posts showing the huge task he has undertaken. You can check out his blog here: https://www.thepca.co.uk/press-release/goochies-coast-2-coast-2018-blog/
There’s still time to donate too, and you can do so by clicking on the following link: https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/pcabenevolent/goochiescoast2coast2018
