I decided to organise an open match at one of my local waters, Janson’s Fishery, Elton nr Nottingham last year. They have an excellent place with good fishing, concrete platforms and lovely people who run it.

I ended up not fishing the match as I contracted allergic conjunctivitis and couldn’t see a float!!

So with that I ended up walking the bank after sorting out the pools etc. One of the anglers said to me organising a match was one of the things he wanted to do. I asked him why? And he proceeded to tell me about his son being born premature and he wanted to do something to say thank you to the nurses at the hospital who helped her through it.

That struck a cord with me as my nephew was born premature too. I spoke to Andy the owner of Janson’s about the possibility of running a charity match in the future to raise funds for the local Neo Natal Unit. I was then told his son was also born premature and no problem with the match. What are the chances of that?

It was in that instant a monster was born!!

I got home and started to email away looking for a few prizes for the day. The first was our illustrious leader Mr Marsden who promised me some caps and a shirt as long as I wrote about the match for the site, so a deal was struck and the items arrived.

Carpvader then promised to give me loads of stuff with the next email I got back. Along the way I’ve managed to get promises from Kobrafeeders, Matchfishing Magazine, Polytackle and Teme Severn.

To top it all Fishing Republic kicked in an 11m Browning Syntec Specimen pole to give to the winner.

To them all I’m grateful as they get asked for stuff all the time and to donate something to someone they’ve never met is awesome. Thank you.

The Angling Times and Evening Post also said they would sent someone to cover the match for their respective papers.

I’m lucky to have a friend who’s a printer (thanks Dean) so tickets were ordered and invites sent out.

As it stands at the minute with 4 months to go all 40 pegs are spoken for.