Why Every Saints Fan Should Donate Just £3 To Francis Benali's Big Run Tuesday, 16th Sep 2014 14:22 Those who watched Francis Benali runa around St Mary's on Saturday cannot have failed to have been moved by his emotional return. Likewise those who waited outside the ground to welcome him raised the hairs on the back of his neck and all in all showed that the community spirit is once again alive and well at Southampton Football Club. Indeed on the news clips last night including a mini documentary on the run on BBC's inside out showed just how much pain the ex Saint had to go through, not just physically but mentally at one time unable to hold in his emotions at a time when he was completely drained and unable to consume enough calories to keep him going. But keep going he did and finally arrived back in his home city and completed what was an enormous challenge. A quick look at his website on Tuesday lunchtime showed that so far he has raised £128,668.83 a great total but surely it should be much more, would it not be fitting if we Saints supporters could up that figure to £200,000 in the coming days and it wont take a lot to make that possible. But it is about much more than raising money for charity, Franny running around St Mary's signified so much more, this time last year he would not have been allowed into the stadium even if it was for a good cause, the very fact that he was able to do it with not only current Saints Chairman Ralph Krueger alongside him but being welcomed by a host of Saints legends shows that times have changed and once again we are respecting and honouring our past. Of course we have achieved success with the likes of Franny ostracised, but when good men like him are on your side it makes things a lot easier, so donating to his Big Run is about a lot more than just the money for Cancer research which is brilliant in itself, but about what this club has been built on over the years, people with not only a love of Saints but a love for the City and the community that surrounds it. Im sure Franny wont thank me for saying any of this, being one of the nicest people in Professional football his only agenda in this was doing something for the cause of Cancer Reasearch, but you only had to look at him to realise just how much the support of the fans meant to him. So now Im asking for every Saints fan to donate just £3 to Franny via one of the links below or by text, its not a big amount and some will be able to donate a little more and maybe some will only be able to afford less, but if every Saints supporter who was in the stadium on Saturday does donate £3 then that will take Franny past the £200,000 mark, if every Saints fan who is on the club data base did so then the total would be pushing £300,000. Take it a stage further if every follower of the the club on Twitter followed suite ie 265,000, then the sum raised would not be far off £1 million. Lets get Franny the publicity he deserves, lets make this go viral, everyone who reads this story re tweet it, share it or like it on facebook and generally lets get the rest of the country alerted to just what Franny has done. So get to work, but firstly dont forget to donate, if Franny can go through such pain, surely us Saints supporters can spare him the price of a pint. Find out more about the run itself as well as how to donate at To make a text donation from your mobile phone please text “BIGR55 followed by the amount you would like to donate EG £1, £3, £5, £10” To text number 70070. For example if you wanted to donate £10. Text BIGR55 £10 to 70070 Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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