A SOUTHAMPTON charity has smashed a second world record in three years.

Following their successful attempt to play the longest continuous football game, a 102-hour marathon at St Mary’s Stadium in June 2015, volunteers from Testlands Support Project (TSP) have played the world’s longest indoor football match.

They played 72 hours of continuous football (#Super72) at Testlands Hub, Green Lane, doubling the previous record of 36 hours.

A total of 2,406 goals were scored (33 an hour), with the winning team (in white shirts) triumphing 1,317 - 1,089.

 “The competitiveness and tempo of the game stayed very high which surprised me, but I think that helped get people through it,” said organiser Luke Newman, TSP’s founder and chair of trustees.

“It was much harder than our 102-hour game because we were playing on a hard surface and kicking the ball and tackling so much more.

“We’re all covered in bruises with sore backs, hips, toes and a few sprained ankles as well.

“But we knew what we were letting ourselves in for. More than 50 people signed up but we had more drop out than play, some because they were concerned they wouldn’t be fit enough.

“We could have had 28 players involved but couldn’t fill the last two places.”

Two squads of 13 took part in the six-a-side match with some players on the pitch for up to 36 hours.

Ten referees and a support team of 23 were also needed as well as 23 ‘independent witnesses’ to verify the feat as an official Guiness World Record.

“The witnesses had to record everything; free-kicks, substitutions and with what foot the goals were scored – only one of them was a header!” explained Luke, who slept for only three of the 72 hours.

“That will be checked against the CCTV footage taken from the cameras we had in each corner of the hall.”

The players hope to have raised £10,000 for the TSP’s work with young people and local communities.

The charity was founded in 2011 by Luke, Joseph Crook and Dan Annetts, all just 18 at the time, as a way to ‘give back’ to the local communities of Millbrook and Lordshill, where they grew up and now work.

A year earlier, they had founded a company working locally with young people called Testlands Multisport Coaching.

“We’d already experienced first-hand that there was no level playing field and that if you lived in a recognised area of deprivation, one predominantly made up of social housing, you were not, particularly as a young person, likely to receive or be able to access, the same opportunities as others from less disadvantaged backgrounds,” explains Luke, a former youth coach at AFC Totton.

“So we created a charity offering opportunities to disadvantaged young people.”