‘Hardest Geezer’ running to every England game at Euro 2024 – and calls it a “doddle”

Russ Cook – aka the ‘Hardest Geezer’ – is back on the road, two months after making headlines around the world for running the entire length of Africa.

The 27-year-old from Worthing covered more than 16,000 kilometres over 352 days through 16 different countries on his epic African adventure.

He overcame an armed robbery, visa issues and health scares as he ran from South Africa’s most southerly point to cross the finish line in Tunisia nearly a year later – and raised over £1million for charity.

Back on road

He’d teased a new venture was in the offing last week when he said: “2 months since Project Africa finished. Just about starting to settle back into ‘normal’ life in the UK, so there is only one thing for it. BACK ON ROAD.”

And all has been revealed as the big football fan is going to be running to every England game at Euro 2024.

While not on the scale of the Africa challenge, Cook still has the small matter of 352 miles (566km) to cover before England’s first game (against Serbia) this Sunday in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

He will then run to the next two group games which are in Frankfurt (just under 300km away) the following Thursday and then Cologne (around 200km) on 25th June.

So that’s close to 1,000km just for the group games and he’ll then be hoping England progress to the knockout stages to set up the next phase of the run.

‘An absolute tear up’

Cook will again be raising money for The Running Charity and is donating his sponsorship from Sports Direct and Score Draw to the charity.

And speaking about what lies ahead he called it “a doddle”!

He set off from Wembley, will run to Essex and then get a ferry across the English Channel before running through the Netherlands and on to Germany to “see Southgate and the boys on an absolute tear up”.

He added: “What a time to be alive! Gotta be said as well, it’s significantly easier than running across the Sahara Desert so I’m enjoying myself… what a doddle.”