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Date: 26th September 2025
Football and the MND Community
We all have our own motivating factors for getting behind a particular charity. Having arranged walks for many different charities, in 2019, my brother-in-law, Steve Wood and I were asked to help Stephen Darby, a former Liverpool, Bradford City and Bolton Wanderers footballer who had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and was establishing a charity with his friend, Chris Rimmer, a former British serviceman. This is the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation. As our walks often involved routes around football stadia, this seemed appropriate.
Then we got to know Stephen and learned what an inspirationally selfless character he was. We have since become friends with Stephen and this made us more determined to raise awareness and as much money for his Foundation as possible. Stephen’s attitude is not uncommon among MND sufferers. Former Ipswich and Sunderland striker Marcus Stewart was more recently diagnosed and he too is campaigning to raise awareness of MND, a life-limiting disease with no cure. With Stephen and Marcus, we stage the original March of the Day (Bradford to Liverpool) in 2024 and March of the Day II (Wembley to Ipswich) in 2025. Over 100 different ex-pros have taken part in these two events which raised a combined £376,000 for the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation.
Scotland has played a role in the Foundation. Before it was officially set up, we were invited to Rangers in September 2019, managed then by Steven Gerrard, to help publicise our first walk, Steps 4 Stephen. So we were determined to come back to Scotland. The Scottish March of the Day on October 10-12, in collaboration with the My Name5 Doddie Foundation, will be the third big event. Its fitting that their Foundation was set up by another inspiring ex-sportsman, Doddie Weir.
We have a core team of thirty taking part next month. Click here and find out what has motivated them to join in.
https://www.redwoodevents.co.uk/core-team-motivation/
Its fair to say that our ever increasing March of the Day squad will keep on going until a cure is found.
#AttackMND
Mike Wilson
Event Lead
Darby Rimmer MND Foundation
Co-Founder of Redwood Events
Posted in: Latest News
Tags: MARCH OF THE DAY, MND