Handcuffing

Steph, Matt and myself met at 10.20 am to go over to Asda to get a cake made especially for the day, we also decided to get some other things to make the days atmosphere better. We got some lemonade, cola, sweets and chocolate balls. After we got these we went along to Notts County to meet everyone else.

Billy Dearden- Supported the event

The people came in the order of the three of us, Nicki, Kayleigh and then Jill. We were all there for 11:50.

We all walked down to the reception to meet Mark Stevenson (Stevo), who told us that the players would be along soon.

Billy Dearden was on his way out but came over wished us all good luck and said well done.

Two parts of the media started to arrive, Central News and the local newspaper. Then Darrin Foss came in and we managed to quickly give him a set of handcuffs before he escaped.

The media went to set up their equipment while we all sat in reception nervous as hell and with handcuffs dangling on our wrists. Stevo then came out of the office and took the people the media wanted.

We walked into the stands and did our interviews and photos. Trying to act serious when your having your photo took with Mildenhall is a hard job. We were then took back to reception while the players had their showers.

Nicki and myself started a game of football on the table with the chocolate footballs and some plastic cups.

Steve Parkin- Kindly cut the cake

The lady from BBC Radio Nottingham came along and started to do some interviews with us. I've never seen people as red in the face as we all where.

We asked Steve Parkin if he could make a cut in our cake for us. He was willing to do so and made a nice tidy diagonal slice though the handcuffs and Billy Dearden.

Willis Francis was the first player to be ready so off he and Steph went. We had absoloutly no idea where they had gone!

Tom Loakes came out of the office and said that the last time they had been seen was walking out of the main gates. We later found out that they had been for dinner at McDonald's, and started a mini food fight by dropping the fries all over and Willis milkshake. They were asking McDonald workers for donations to the cause. While they also went to the video shop.

Richardson and Stallard where also asked to cut the cake and they decided to do this as if it was a wedding cake. They were just walking into Notts County when we were all walking out. We did a few more interviews for BBC Radio Nottingham, and then finally off we went.

We decided to walk down to The Globe. It was one player with two people so it was:
Nicki Gill - Ian Richardson - Matt Hire
Jill Clarke - Mark Stallard - Darrin Foss
Kayleigh Usher - Tony Hackworth - Jo Douglas
I was walking on one side of a telegraph pole and Kayleigh on the other so Tony Hackworth was stuck facing the pole.

Even Loakesy helped out!

We went into The Globe and ordered our drinks. We then tried to walk with our drinks and sit down. We went to the seats in the wrong order. Tom from Notts County came along and stayed to talk to us all. We sat, drunk our drinks and talked to some members of the public who were in there asking what we were doing.

Me and Kayleigh then took Tony Hackworth back to Notts County to meet Darren Caskey. He made us all laugh and he is a really nice and funny man. All the others started to come back. And then we kindly allowed the players to go.

Someone said that the choice of colour fur was not appropriate but we didn't care and all had a good day.

We raised a large amount of money and feel very proud. Speaking to people who took part in the event I feel that the day went really well and we all said we would like to do it again.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who took part. Everyone who sponsored someone, the players, the players wives and girlfriends and the media.

But the biggest thank you go to Willis Francis for buying the McDonalds, Tony Hackworth for buying the drinks, Tom and Stevo for helping to arrange the event and Billy Dearden for allowing the event to take place.

And ofcourse, all the players for showing up and doing their bit to save the club.

Joanne Douglas