By Cian O'Connell

It was a weekend journey with a difference.

Former Sligo footballer Ross Donovan did his bit for charity clocking up 10 kilometres in a go kart with his six year old son Michael.

Ultimately it capped a fine fundraising effort from the Eastern Harps GAA club. More than 11,000 euro has been raised for the CLASP and Ballymote Community Nursing Unit which delighted Donovan.

"Around two weeks ago the club started doing a fundraiser for CLASP and the Ballymote Community Nursing Unit, they were doing duals, head to heads running against each other," Donovan explains.

"Whoever ran the most was going to get the pride of the parish if you like, but I hadn't taken part in the running. It just didn't suit me on the roads at the minute, but the young lad has a go kart at the house and we were messing on it a couple of evenings.

"We said we would go, to give it a lash, to do something for it. That was just our twist on it."

So how long did the adventure take? "We actually did really well, an hour and a half," Donovan laughs.

"We stopped on the way for ice cream, we had a great little time. One or two of the videos are what set it off, that is what got everyone in the humour for it.

"We did another one where he finished off, he brought us home for the last maybe half a mile or so, he brought us in. He enjoyed the whole day."

There wasn't any significant masterplan when leaving the family home which added to the sense of excitement.

"We announced it on Twitter that morning what we were going to do," Donovan states. "We had no route or anything planned, we were conscious of not being on the main road for too long. You have two or three little back roads into the village of Gurteen from our house, so we went on that loop.

"The plan was to get to Gurteen where we might get a lift home, but we had got on so well and we enjoyed it so well we got to Gurteen quick enough. We went out the road, my wife followed us for a bit of it, but she let us off when we got on the open road.

"You'd have to give huge credit to a lot of our lads in the club, they have ran some amount of kilometres, one of the selectors Mikey O'Grady did 11 kilometres."

Throughout the country clubs continue to organise interesting events and Eastern Harps' senior footballers benefited from this experience according to Donovan.

"You can see stuff going on in loads of clubs around the county and country," he adds. "With ours they ran it for two weeks and what they really took from it was there was that bit of competitiveness in it. That is what you want in a team sport.

"They had two teams, A and B with 19 on each side. Whoever won the dual then your overall team could win. It had the club talking about it, everyone was tracking the updates as to who was ahead so it brought a buzz for the two weeks.

"People were saying the charities would struggle because there wasn't as many out and about. Maybe the money wouldn't be there, but every club in the country has got behind some charity or local fundraiser. The money being raised is phenomenal.

"We have other clubs here who ran some great fundraisers, the money they gathered was unbelievable."