International cricket legend, Sir Ian Botham was walking on the Taff Trail in Cardiff today raising funds in aid of leukaemia research.Cardiff is the seventh city in Beefy’s Great British Walk 2012 – part of a series of walks made by the former England all-rounder in aid of the charity Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.
In all, Botham will cover over 150 miles in 10 cities over 10 days. The walk took in sites around Cardiff before members of the public joined Botham for the final four miles along the Taff Trail.
Among those taking part were members of the Glamorgan County Cricket team and Wales rugby star Jamie Roberts.
Speaking ahead of the walk, Botham said: “I’ve been to Cardiff a lot and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be walking along the Taff Trail so as a keen fisherman I’m looking forward to being by the river. I always love coming to Cardiff. They’ve been good to us and in return we’ve been good to them. We’ve had a fantastic response and raised about £175,000 in six days and that speaks for itself. We’re hoping to get hundreds, maybe thousands, of people down today. We had that in other cities and hopefully Cardiff will be good too.”
When Sir Ian first walked from John O’Groats to Lands End in 1985, only 20% of children with leukaemia survived. Yet now, thousands of miles and over £13 million later, 90% of children are beating the most common form of this devastating disease.
But Sir Ian will not stop fundraising until every child with a blood cancer survives. He needs your help although great advances have been made there are still children and teenagers losing their battle.
