FOUR friends and Poole Town supporters are embarking on a 181-mile walk around the county to raise money for the Wessex Cancer Trust and the club they love.

The pals Paul Chapman, Tony Jacobs, Phillip Sansom and Perry Vaughan, who have been going to matches together for years and are known for waving their Pride of Dorset county flag, will set off from Sandbanks on July 4 and hope to arrive back at the Poole Town Tatnam Ground four days later.

Paul told the Echo: “I don’t think we realised how far it was when we said let’s just walk around Dorset. We’re hoping to average 45 miles per day. It’s going to take four days but we’ll manage. It seemed like a great idea at the time!”

The group is hoping to raise £3,000 for the two causes – including some matched-funding from Barclays.

Paul added: “Everyone is touched by cancer in one form or another – and it’s also the chosen charity of the football club so we decided to support them and see what we can do.”

No stranger to fundraising Paul, who along with fellow walker Tony raised £1,000 for the club with a Tatnam to Wembley bike ride last year, added: “We’d like to do an event annually and get more people involved. We want to get the message across that Poole Town are there and they want to give a bit back to the community.

“It’s such a friendly club with a fantastic board of directors who have built it from nothing and its going to go from strength to strength.

“We need to get the people of Poole involved and hope-fully we’ll get there.”

The group will be updating listeners about their progress every morning during the walk on Hot FM.

Get behind the team’s efforts at www.justgiving.com/prideofdorsetwalk2013.