Stars from the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship were left to let their driving do the talking after being comprehensively beaten by a team from
ITV Sport during an end of season football game at the home of Chesham United.
However the pain of a humiliating defeat was eased by the fact that the game was being used to raise fund for the Iain Rennie Hospice at Home charity – which provides terminally ill patients with a 24-hour on-call nursing home care service and needs to raise £200,000 by April 2007 in order to prevent reducing its service.
Eight of the BTCC's top drivers –
Jason Plato, James Thompson, Darren Turner, Rob Collard,
Colin Turkington, Gareth Howell, Mark Proctor and Paul O'Neill – turned out for the event at non-league side Chesham's ground, with Team RAC driver Turkington scoring the driver's first goal of the game just before half-time.
"It's always good to get a goal just before the break and I think it boosted our confidence, even though we were about eight nil down by this stage!” he said. “I went for the header and I hit it as hard as I could. My theory was that if it doesn't go in at least I might injure the keeper! Fortunately, it went in off the crossbar. It was really good fun for a good cause but to be honest we never really stood a chance."
SEAT race engineer John Waterman and mechanic Andrew Tracey – who joined the Wanderers along with Chesham's manager and ex-England player Luther Blisset – also found the net, but they were no match for an ITV team that included ex-Jamaican international Robbie Earle, reporter Gabriel Clark and match commentator Peter Drury.
Arguably Wanderers' star player was SEAT Sport UK motor sport manager Scott Dennis – he had to be carried off the pitch by his fellow players when he sustained a knee injury while valiantly keeping out goal number eleven with a great out-of-the-box tackle.
