Chiswick Teacher Takes on Epic Stadium Challenge
Marcus Hall was supporting colleague after her cancer diagnosis
The Shift4Shivs team
May 12, 2024
A Chiswick teacher ran 100km this weekend to raise funds after a colleague was diagnosed with cancer.
Marcus Hall and two of his colleagues visited every Premier League and Championship football stadium inside the M25 on Saturday 11 May starting at 1am and finishing at 4pm.
The decided to take on the challenge after hearing the news that their colleague, Shivani Amin, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia late last year.
Marcus joined Charlie Blair and Matt Attenborough, two other members of staff at Newton Prep in Battersea, where Shivani teaches Maths to 9–13-year-olds, to raise funds for her chosen charity Anthony Nolan.
The 31-year-old was newly-engaged but life was turned upside down just before Christmas following her diagnosis. Looking for a way to support her during this fight and considering her love of football, the group decided to run the mammoth 100km, which is just over 60 miles, making the entire run over 2 marathons, and calling the challenge Shift4Shivs.
Joining the three teachers are Shivani’s friends and ex-colleagues, who will run part of the way with them, and the entire school community are coming together to support the run, as well as Shivani during this time by raising money on JustGiving but also raising awareness for potential donors.
Marcus commented that, ‘When the news broke about Shivani, we knew we had to do something to support our dear friend. She loves football, in fact she's better than all of us at football, and she's also super fit! So why not combine her two loves, to punish ourselves. We want to face a challenge to support her as she goes through her own. We love her and want to do whatever we can to make this tricky period in her life more bearable.’
The training has been intense and they have raised over £11,000 so far, and it is all to show their support for Shivani as she continues her brave battle. Indeed, on the big day itself, Shivani will be undertaking preparation for her bone marrow transplant. She is lucky to have found a bone marrow match in her sister, but many are not so lucky, which is why she chose Anthony Nolan as the charity for this epic run.
Matt Attenborough said, ‘ We want to give her something to focus on during the hard times and raise money for the vital work that Anthony Nolan does. We know we can get this done as we are doing it for her!’
Charlie Blair, ‘I’m 40 years old, have the hips of an 80-year-old and don’t consider any exercise that doesn’t involve a ball enjoyable, particularly running. But anything we can do to support Shivani as she goes into battle, we’re doing. This challenge combines her love of fitness and football, so even if we crawl around, we’ll get it done to put a smile on her face.’
Anthony Nolan aims to save the lives of people with blood cancer. Founded in 1974 by Shirley Nolan, Anthony Nolan was the world’s first stem cell register. Over the last 50 years the Anthony Nolan register has matched potential stem cell donors to blood cancer and blood disorder patients in need of transplants. To date the charity has facilitated more than 26,500 transplants worldwide. People aged 16-30, who are in good general health can find out more about stem cell donation and sign up to the Anthony Nolan register at anthonynolan.org.
The team has already raised over £23,000 and if you’d like to donate to Shift4Shivs click here.
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