“I tell you what’s really nice when you’re running around Doncaster in the mornings,” says Grant McCann, “when you hear people beeping car horns at you, waving out the window.” Those snippets of encouragement are priceless pick-me-ups on the month-long annual Prostate United challenge, which entails running, walking or cycling every day to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer UK. McCann, his Doncaster Rovers coaching staff, club staff and supporters will finish at the club’s stadium on Thursday afternoon.
“We’ve managed to get more than 60 people involved in the Doncaster page this year – everyone is doing something,” the manager says. “It has brought the whole club together with the camaraderie around the place.”
McCann, his assistant Cliff Byrne, and Rovers’ record appearance maker and now head of recruitment, James Coppinger, have been running 10km every day this month. “Copps could probably still play given how he is at the minute, doing all these runs,” McCann says.
Some of McCann’s staff have been taking it more seriously than others. “Some of them are trying to break all sorts of records with their times but I’m too long in the tooth for that,” he says, smiling. “It’s not about breaking records on day 15 … it’s a long, long month.”
By the end, McCann will have clocked 192 miles in October. “The legs are tired, the body’s sore, your mind plays tricks on me every morning when I’m heading out. But we’re almost there, there are only three days to go.”
In July, McCann and Byrne swapped club tracksuits for white lab coats when they visited the Biodiscovery Institute at the University of Nottingham and met professor Nigel Mongan and his team, who are leading research into the most common cancer in men. As the No 45 Prostate United shirts McCann and co have donned throughout October show: every 45 minutes one man dies from prostate cancer.
“They’re constantly trying to find a cure. I know they will get to the bottom of it, find solutions, because speaking to the professors, they don’t think they’re too far away,” McCann says.
“It opened my eyes to how much everything costs … If our efforts can help in any way then we’re really happy to do so. Hopefully we can make a difference. It was an amazing day to go and see what they do. The people, how hard they work, the machinery; it’s an unbelievable place.”
McCann’s interest was born after working with Stephen Gilpin, now the head of academy performance at Wolves, at Hull City in 2019-20. Gilpin, whose grandad Norman died of prostate cancer in 2012, co-founded the Prostate United challenge while working as head of medical at Rotherham, alongside Ross Burbeary, now head of performance at Huddersfield.
“He [Gilpin] told me about the challenge and I went home and thought about the family members, friends, people who I have known who have been affected by this disease.” Just last week one of McCann’s friends told him of his diagnosis. McCann has completed the challenge as manager of Hull, Peterborough and Doncaster. Some routes have been more hazardous than others.
“I would drive to Hull, park and run over the Humber Bridge, or park and run over the A1,” he says with a grin. “Being able to bring football clubs together, getting everybody involved, has been brilliant.
“You hear stories about people’s families, dads, uncles, grandads and it just hits home. People might be getting bored of me on social media, posting my runs on X and Strava, but we’re doing it for a reason: to raise awareness and for people to understand this disease is taking too many lives.”
Doncaster are one of dozens of clubs taking part in the challenge, which this year has so far generated more than £237,000 for the charity. McCann and his team are again top of the leaderboard after raising almost £30,000, eclipsing the £18,000 Rovers raised last year. Six years in, Prostate United is inching towards the magical £1m milestone. On the pitch, meanwhile, Doncaster are fourth in the fourth tier, four points off the summit after an impressive victory at Bradford last Saturday. “If we could win the Prostate United challenge and League Two, that would be brilliant. We’ll keep working hard to do that.”
McCann and his staff tend to run before training or matches, the next of which could prove a strange occasion. McCann’s eldest son, Bayley, could be in the opposition team when Doncaster visit Barnsley in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday. “I don’t know who my wife, Kelly, is going to support or my other two boys,” the 44-year-old says.
“I never envisaged coming up against my son when I was going into management. I might wind him up and tell him I’m going to put our best player on him to shake him up a little bit … If he plays, I want him to do really, really well and get man of the match – but I want us to win.”
