Lots of our fans will have heard of the spill of nurdles into the Port of Tyne in July. Seventeen tonnes of plastic pellets – about one billion of them – spilt into the sea and are now being washed up along the North East coast.
Immediately, hundreds of volunteers jumped into action – forming a website, WhatsApp community groups, working out the best ways to collect nurdles from the sand, seaweed and rockpools, and motivating each other to go out and clean the beaches.
But it’s tiring work, and lots more needs to be done. They are looking for reinforcements.
A small company called Planet League, which works with football clubs to engage fans on social and environmental action, has teamed up with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust to try and reach fans in the North East to join in the effort.
They are launching the Nurdle Derby – where fans of ten clubs in the area will compete to see which group can do the most clean-up effort.
Fans sign up to the Nurdle Derby platform, choose their club, and then can take over 20 different actions to score goals for their club. They have to upload a photo as evidence of the action. And watch out for cheating – the VAR system checks each goal and issues yellow and red cards for infringements.
Each club plays four one-week fixtures – three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. The club at the top of the table at the end wins the Nurdle Trophy. And top-scoring fans win prizes, too.
Our biggest rival here will be Newcastle. To make sure we win the Trophy, we need to ensure a good turnout, as well as hoping that Newcastle lose some. Our fixtures are:
Week 1: Fans of Whitley Bay
Week 2: Fans of Hebburn Town
Week 3: Fans of Gateshead
Week 4: Fans of Newcastle United
It means we have smaller opponents to start with, but by Weeks 3 and 4 we need to be in good numbers, well trained and fully fired up.
Let’s get out and bring some red and white power to the coastline. And get bragging rights on the beach as well as on the pitch.
P.S. A spooky fact which might bode well for us. “Sunderland” is an anagram of “Nurdle Sand”!
