Sean Jarvis gives the latest on his charity drive
- Sean Jarvis on route home, heading towards Cardiff- Raising money for five charities including Town Foundation
- Town's Commercial Director has visited different football grounds along the way
Huddersfield Town’s Commercial Director Sean Jarvis has began his journey towards Cardiff so he arrives in time for Town's game this weekend.
Sean set off from Huddersfield on Saturday and has already visited 12 countries. On the way Sean and his friend Richard Chambers have visited different football grounds to embrace different cultures around Europe.
“It has been good so far. We have been driving for around 10 hours every day, from almost as soon as we wake up to going to bed at night. It’s been a challenge but we are really enjoyed it.
“On our travels we have visited all kinds of grounds and tried to visit at least one in every country. So far we’ve been to Antwerp in Belgium, PSV (Netherlands), Dortmund (Germany) then drove through the Black Forest to the San Bernardino Pass then through Lichtenstein, Austria and Switzerland, where we visited SCRA Altrach, FC Vaduz (pictured below) and Lugano FC respectively.
“We drove to Italy along the Mediterranean coast and visited FC Sanremese – who also play in blue and white stripes - and Genoa before we went to Monaco’s ground and from there to France and Spain.
“Interestingly we couldn’t find a team nearby in Spain to go to, but we were only in and out of the country. We went into Andorra and saw their national stadium (pictured below) before heading towards Toulouse.”
Visiting both small and large clubs has helped Sean gain a greater insight into differing football cultures and has also enabled him to gain a greater understanding of what other clubs do well. He believes by visiting these grounds it will help him develop Huddersfield Town as a football club in the long-term.
“We’ve seen some huge stadiums but also some great smaller set-ups. All the clubs do different things really well.
“For example at PSV there is a café in the corner of the ground that overlooks the pitch, so at matches you can sit in this café and watch the game.
“You can see touches of differences in culture throughout them all and it’s been a great experience.”
Apart from driving on the opposite side of the road, Sean and Richard have both had to get used to the difference in terrain and driving styles in each country.
They both admitted the challenge is a lot harder than they thought, but it’s one they are both thoroughly enjoying.
“The drive so far has been a lot harder than I thought because of the traffic and the long distances.
“Through the Italian and French Riviera the traffic was bumper to bumper the whole way and it was very similar to that through Germany at rush hour.
“At times it’s been like driving in an arcade game especially in Italy; there were people and motorbikes everywhere and crossings almost every 20 metres.
“Some of the roads have a lot of twists and turns in and obviously, we have been driving on a different side of the road than we are used to, which makes it harder as well.”
The van was donated by Wellhouse Leisure for the pairs 2,770 mile journey as they raise money for the Town Foundation, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, the Hollybank Trust, Goals 4 Hearts and Prostate Cancer UK.
“The van has been magnificent and it drives excellently,” explained Town’s Commercial Director.
“Our journey so far has been really well received. We’ve been getting a lot of messages off people from Twitter and Facebook who like our updates.
“People including a lot of Town fans telling us they are donating money and supporting us, which is great!”
Sean returns to the UK in four days and will be auctioning off items he has purchased from each country along the way.
“We have bought some items on our journey that we are going to auction off on our return.
“So far we have bought some schnapps from Austria, some German beer, a snow globe from Andorra and a lot more; I don’t want to give them all away just yet.
“We are paying our respects to Town’s fallen at the Bottle of Somme war graves today before our return to the UK, so we will be back in time for Town’s match against Cardiff City!
“We would like to urge you all to keep behind us and to keep sponsoring us as the money goes to five great charities!”
For updates on their journey follow Sean Jarvis on Twitter @SeanMJarvis!
Supporters can donate to these worthwhile causes by visiting: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SeanJarvis.
Tweets by @htafcdotcom
