The football match which took place during the May bank holiday weekend saw 36 amateur players from Stockport and Manchester play a 72 hour continuous football match, smashing the previously set 64 hour record. The marathon match finished with a score of 603 to ‘the reds’ and 462 to ‘the whites’.

Sponsored by Midshire and Ricoh, the Gala Dinner rose in excess of £10,000. This was aided by an auction and raffle, which saw numerous football related items including signed shirts from the likes of Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero bid for. There were also luxury holiday packages and city breaks up for bids, for those less passionate about football.

Guest speakers Neil ‘Razor Ruddock and Andy Powell provided the entertainment for the event. Andy Powell, the evenings compere, got the night off to a great start with a sing-along to ‘That’s Amoré’, which involved lots of passionate napkin waving. Football legend Ruddock gave an energetic, entertaining speech and posed for pictures throughout the evening.

Additional speeches came from Nick Rose the event organiser, Julian Stafford- Managing Director of Midshire and Kate Puc- Francis House fundraiser.

Among the 250 attendees were representatives from many businesses including: Ricoh UK, Lexmark UK, Riso UK, The Business Depot, The Whites Group- White Recycling, SAS Daniels, Ines Escola from Siemens Financial and Lindsay Brindley the headteacher of Stretford High School.

All money raised will be donated to the Francis House children’s hospice. The Didsbury based hospice works to help children and young adults with life threatening illnesses, and strives to provide the necessary support and short-term rest for their families.

View the event photos at: http://bit.ly/19dsoCs

Donations can still be made at: www.justgiving.com/MidshireF72

MidshireF72: www.MidshireF72.co.uk

Midshire Business Systems: www.midshire.co.uk

Francis House: http://www.francishouse.org.uk

The company, a new client for the 72 hour match’s headline sponsor, Midshire Business Systems, has agreed to produce some of its fun and friendly designs to brighten up doorways for children at the hospice.

Although the final whistle has blown on the game – which is now awaiting confirmation of its place in the record books from Guinness – the fundraising continues. A gala dinner is set for next month, which will celebrate the efforts of the Midshire F72 team members and the companies and volunteers who supported the event.

Nick Rose, Midshire’s top salesman, captain of the winning team and the event’s organiser, said: “We are delighted to receive continued offers from business people and private individuals that will make such a difference to children at the hospice. We set out to raise £25,000, but along the way we’ve also received donations in a whole host of ways. Everyone wants to contribute what they can to help us and the support like that from Doodle Doors – goes a really long way.”

Doodle Doors

Chris Simmons, the managing director of Synk Creative, the company behind Doodle Doors said: “We’d heard about Midshire’s efforts, saw the ‘bigger picture’ and we’re extremely happy to get involved in such a worthwhile cause. Our bespoke doors are a great way to bring a room to life. We can print any design, be it a photo, football scene, princess design or character – straight onto the door. It’s even possible to create a full scene across a bedroom wall, as we supply bespoke wallpapers so can create a full scene using both methods together. This seemed such a fantastic way to help and I hope it will help raise a smile at the hospice for a long time to come.”

Donations can still be made at: www.justgiving.com/MidshireF72
MidshireF72: www.midshiref72.co.uk
Midshire Business Systems: www.midshire.co.uk Doodle Doors:
www.doodledoors.co.uk

The Stockport-based national printer, copier, scanner, IT and business telephony supply and service business is already responsible for keeping the administrative wheels of the region’s museums and galleries turning, amongst them the Liverpool World Museum, Maritime Museum, National Conservation Centre and the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight.

The Ellesmere Port aquarium, famous for its collection of 10ft Sand Tiger sharks and a 3.8 million litre Caribbean Reef display featuring a 70 metre Aquatunnel, chose Midshire after it demonstrated it could significantly upgrade failing equipment at no additional cost.

Blue Planet Aquarium is one of the North West’s most successful attractions featuring 50 exhibits across a wide range of animals

The park director Andy Hygate said Midshire: “Saved money on our previous agreement and delivered a modern solution with improved functions which better fits our needs.”

He added that a clear approach to outlining costs helped secure the contract.

Midshire’s Anthony Donelan, who is responsible for the Blue Planet contract, said: “We have machines now in more than a dozen locations for some of the North West’s most popular attractions and were delighted to add Blue Planet as a client.”

We may not have won the World Cup since 1966, but Rose has big plans in store for his world record breaking attempt to stage the longest running football match in history this year.

In May 2013, the Midshire F72 marathon football match is going to take place and, you guessed it, Midshire is going to sponsor it, along with Booth Ainsworth LLP, Lexmark, Ricoh and Sharp.

Holland’s football match lasted a painful 64 hours. We can’t even imagine watching a football match that lasts that long! Nick Rose, a self-confessed football fanatic, has vowed to break the record with a target of a new 72 hour match.

A total of 36 players are going to take part, and Rose estimates that the match will last the equivalent of 48 normal matches if they reach their target. It’s expected that the winning team will score in excess of 500 goals as well, which is pretty mind-boggling.

How will the teams manage it? With a huge amount of training. If you think about the fact that footballers average around 7 miles of running per game, we can’t even begin to imagine how far the players in the F72 teams are going to have to run!

All spaces on the two teams have been filled, so say hello to your new world record breakers:

Team one: Alex Jay, Ash Scott, Chris Bone, Dave Wardle, Ed Bingham, Jake Harman, James Bentley, Joel Lawton, Jon Towers, Josh Wharton, Mark Harrison, Matt Chadbourne, Mikey Walton, Nick Boothby, Nick Rose, Paul Jay, Richard Symonds and Steve Higginson.

Team two: Aaron Coates, Andrew McIvor, Andrew Robinson, Chris Flynn, Danny Walden, James Urquhart, Lee Boneshill, Mark Snazell, Matthew Hayes, Michael Wallington, Mike Massey, Paul Burke, Paul Lee, Raz Akhtar, Rik Snorgaard, Seamus Whitehead, Sam Turner and Wayne Trowbridge.

Of course, it’s not just for the world title, F72 will also help to raise money and awareness for Francis House Children’s Hospice, a local charity. You can donate money to F72 on the official site, and all proceeds will be sent onto the charity at the end of the match.

Trafford Community Leisure Trust in Manchester is providing training facilities for the players at the moment, but the match is actually going to take place at Stretford High School.

So, whether you’re a true football enthusiast or you just want to see some history in the making, get yourself down to Stretford High School on May 2nd 2013, and don’t forget to donate!

Two years ago SAS Daniels LLP streamlined its document management for cross-office efficiencies and greater security.

The firm brought in Manchester-based Midshire Business Solutions to look at ways to ensure office equipment would keep pace with increasing demands as the practice grew.

One of the first steps was to introduce identical multi-function printer/copier/scanner machines at each of its four locations to replace a system that was fragmented and becoming unwieldy.

Its new Sharp machines at Stockport, Macclesfield, Chester and Congleton guaranteed secure handling of sensitive information with the new system encrypting stored information.  Midshire also guaranteed that all held data is destroyed before old machines are taken away and recycled, and new ones take their place.

With the new integrated print management system up and running, the legal team can work from home or a hotel room and print off documents back at the office, walk into any of their offices and use a machine they are already familiar with.

Andrew Perry, SAS Daniels’ chief operating officer, said: “The security and the continuity was a really important consideration for us.”

Equally, the firm was impressed with Midshire’s approach to protecting the investment in the machines by tracking how they are used and offering advice from looking at its intelligent monitoring software to better manage wear and tear.

“From the data Midshire analyses they can see which machines are doing more and move them around to balance the print load.  Midshire tendered for the business alongside two larger national companies.  Although Midshire is national, we liked the fact that they are based locally and they have been extremely responsive, both with technical support to manage the system well, and their service engineers.  Better still we get performance data without having to do any of the admin ourselves – the readings are automatically generated but Midshire analyses the findings to constantly adjust for the best results.”

SAS Daniels works across a comprehensive range of legal services, including employment law, corporate, commercial and real estate, dispute resolution, residential conveyancing, trusts and wills & wealth planning, clinical negligence and personal injury.

Watch the event highlights below:

The printer vendor that provides business services throughout the world first announced its plans to withdraw from the inkjet industry last August. It has now sold the technology for a reported $100m (£65.5m) to the Japanese company Funai.

The two companies have a longstanding relationship, with Funai starting as an OEM partner with Lexmark in 1997. The deal will allow Funai to produce inkjet products and technology to the international market, and will save Lexmark an estimated $95m (£62m) per year.

Lexmark’s chairman, Paul Rooke, said: “We will continue to support our existing customer base with the sale of inkjet supplies.”

The company plans to expand into different areas of the market with the money it will save thanks to the sale, although 1,700 jobs within the company have been made redundant as a result.

Funai is confident that the transaction will not affect businesses and individuals that rely on inkjet office equipment though, as Lexmark will still be the face of inkjet technology.

The president and CEO of Funai said:“Funai and Lexmark have developed a great partnership and we are glad to take over Lexmark’s inkjet-related technology and assets.  Funai will benefit from the strong inkjet business platform that Lexmark has established.”

The transaction is in its final stages and is expected to be completed by June 2013.

Julian Stafford Managing Director of Midshire Business Systems Northern said about the evening “Midshire is delighted to sponsor the first Made in Manchester Awards, a fitting celebration of emerging talent in a city widely acclaimed as Britain’s best for business*.

The whole package: hard work, talent and innovation are what the future pro.manchester judges have been looking for in the financial and professional sectors’ next generation. Working as we do, with many of the city’s largest legal firms and SMEs across the North West we regularly come into contact with the city’s most impressive young professionals; the integral building blocks for any growing business, including our own.

Recognition has a value to business. Awards and accreditations deliver competitive edge, as well as customer confidence. For our own business that includes recognition as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ for Sharp Electronics, becoming a Ricoh Prestige Dealer Partner and being awarded the ISO 14001 environmental certification – one of the first in our industry!

These public recognitions and those encompassed by the Made in Manchester Awards, say something very important about the caliber of the people at the heart of the city’s commercial sector. 

 In and around Manchester we sponsor and work with sporting clubs, from local netball teams Manchester Thunder and England Netball NW through to the Manchester Giants Basketball Team. For us it’s about people with commitment, skill and a real love for what they do. We are open to potential and possibilities – that’s part of the reason we are so pleased to be involved in this celebration of both.

Winners on the evening included young talent from financial and professional firms KPMG, BDO, HSBC, Deloitte, Gateley and BNY Mellon, while individuals at property company urbanbubble and creative firms theEword and Tunafish Media also scooped prizes. The highest accolade of the evening, the chairman’s Rising Star, was awarded to Jemma Bolton of law firm Gateley. Lenox Green from the University of Manchester was named Manchester Champion for his work within the local community through the Rainbow Christian Centre, Hulme.

The awards were staged by membership body pro.manchester, with MEN Media as media partner.

The winners were:

Accountant of the year – Fran Whittle, KPMG, and Simon Kaye, BDO
Banker – Shibaji Dasgupta, HSBC
Business development professional – Sam Jones, Tunafish Media
Corporate financier – Oliver Tebbutt, Deloitte
Digital, media or creative professional – Al Mackin, theEword
Lawyer – Jemma Bolton, Gateley
Property professional – Michael Howard, urbanbubble
Mentor – Tarifa Bagasrawalla, KPMG
Talent and recruitment professional – Sarah Davies, BNY Mellon

Local schools across Greater Manchester and Cheshire have been working with Midshire Business Systems, a leading supplier of IT services and office systems to deliver a bespoke solution that will meet the demanding needs of it’s schools as well as offering considerable savings.

The Midshire F72 marathon match and the Guinness record attempt is planned for May 2013 and is spearheaded by the company’s top salesman – and football enthusiast – Nick Rose.

As for the match, it is expected to last the equivalent of at least 48 ordinary games, back to back, and will take place at a location to be confirmed in Cheshire.

“I knew that I wanted the event to be football related, due to my passion for the sport. I’m also a fitness enthusiast, and so the ‘marathon’ element of the idea really appealed to me. It’s obviously going to be tough, but as they say: ‘no pain, no gain’,” said Nick.

People and local businesses should get behind Midshire F72 because it is going to be a massive event of which Stockport can be proud. We are all hard working lads who want to make a difference to the lives of some of the children and families at the Francis House Children’s Hospice, and all funds raised will go to the hospice. But we are also trying to bring a world record to Stockport and there have got to be plenty of people out there who’d like to be a part of a bit of history in the making.

“We still have places on the teams, and would be very interested in talking to anyone who would like to take part.”

Asked to predict the score Nick said: “How do you predict a score for a 72 hour football match? However I think the winning team will probably need to score around 500 goals”

He added: “We are delighted that Midshire Business Systems have made a very substantial donation, and have agreed to be the named sponsor of the event. I have worked for Midshire for a long time, and the support of Julian Stafford (MD) has been a consistent theme throughout.”

Nick is 26, is from Stockport and married his girlfriend of ten years, Vicki, last year.

All funds raised will go to Francis House, the Didsbury hospice for children with life-threatening or life-shortening illnesses.