Welcome to every park footballer’s worst nightmare: the never-ending game of football.

Well, it will have felt like that to the two teams who last month broke the world record for the longest football match in history.

The Bristol Academy Footballathon in aid of meningitis lasted 36 hours. That’s 24 90-minute games played back-to-back.

Just imagine your stitch after that.Leeds Badgers emerged victorious, having beaten their hosts Bristol Academy 285-255, with Badgers’ Adam McPhee claiming the golden boot with 75 goals.

Topping the previous record, set by a bunch of Canadians, by two-and-a-half hours was no walk in the park though. Players were allowed just five minutes break every hour with play stopping for a 60-minute breather every 12 hours.

As Ian Rush, who had meningitis as a child and was supporting the event, said, “rather them than me”.

Twelve hours in and the task had begun to take its toll, with the action resembling the zombie scene from the Thriller video.

Shattered, sullen and near silent, the players stood around the centre circle until one player begrudgingly loped after a through ball before lazily slotting goal number 179 past the stationary goalie.

By this point, the defenders are making next to no attempt to track back; Alan Hansen would be incandescent with rage.

Even those players enjoying brief respite from the ‘fun’ had to remain pitchside throughout, so the only chance of sleep was under floodlights on the touchline as team-mates kept the game going through the small hours.

Sunday’s graveyard shift of 2am to 6am, anticipated as the attempt’s most arduous period, saw Badgers’ skipper and event organiser Simon Lynes draw on his psychology and management degree to prevent mass abandonment.

“My name was mud at 4am!” he told FFT. “There was a bit of anger!”

By 9.45am, 24 hours in, the Thriller video had become an art installation – Football in Treacle – as players moved as though wading through molasses.

This was football at its slowest possible pace, but it was still football. Enough pasta to sink Venice and more cereal bars than a health food shop carried the players through to a glorious end, by which time Lynes’ pedometer read 70km.

After 36 long arduous hours, time was up and a final whistle had never sounded sweeter. “Some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over… it’s about bloody time! 

The Footballathon was in aid of The Meningitis Trust.  For more info go to www.worldrecordfootball.co.uk