The FA, The PFA and the Everyman Male Cancer Campaign ran the annual Keep Your Eye on the Ball awareness fortnight from 4 – 18 March 2007, helping to raise awareness of testicular and prostate cancer to the football community.

Thanks to help from over 80 Football Clubs and County FAs that supported Keep Your Eye on the Ball by displaying awareness posters, adverts, leaflets and featuring articles in match-day programmes and magazines, the campaign’s life saving awareness messages have reached a vast audience of fans and players.

The FA also hosted a thank you event for supporters of the campaign at Soho Square on 8 March. The FA’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Simon Johnson and FA Head of National Teams Ray Clemence spoke at the event attended by QPR’s Marc Bircham, TalkSport presenter Jason Cundy and top fundraisers for Keep Your Eye on the Ball, a key partner in the FA’s charity policy.

The evening was a great success with a special award presented by Ray Clemence to Millwall FC, in recognition of the £60,000 raised by its fans for the Neil Harris Everyman Appeal. The award was collected by members of the Millwall press office and Marc Bircham on behalf of Neil Harris (who was absent, awaiting the imminent birth of his second child).

Neil Harris, Millwall striker and testicular cancer survivor, commented “It’s great that Millwall have been recognised for all the hard work that so many people connected with the club have done in support of my appeal. The biggest vote of thanks has to go to the fans who continued to support me and raise money even when I was at Nottingham Forest.”

Simon ‘Shaky’ Shakeshaft, a survivor of testicular cancer, was also given an award for his continued support to Keep Your Eye on the Ball. Shaky has spent the last 13 months travelling over 25,000 miles, visiting over 120 English clubs to spread awareness messages about testicular cancer to an estimated 120,000 fans and as a medical professional, spoke to over 1,000 players and coaching staff.

The event also saw the launch of the ‘Keep Your Eye on the Ball’ 5k run in Victoria Park on 3 June 2007. Open to men only, participants will be able to run as part of their chosen football team. The winning team will be the one with the fastest average time over 5k. All money raised through the run will go to the Everyman Campaign to fund research into testicular and prostate cancer.

For more information on The FA’s Charity Policy and the Keep Your Eye on the Ball campaign, click here