Owners of The Three Horseshoes and Oxford City charity cup organisers have confirmed the amount of money raised for the charity DEBRA.
Mike Dove and Tommy Higgs, who run The Three Horseshoes pub in Witney, Oxfordshire, organised the charity tournament at the MGroup Stadium last month in aid of the charity DEBRA which supports people living with epidermolysis bullosa (EB), also known as butterfly skin.
The tournament featured footballing legends such as Graeme Souness, president of DEBRA, Matt Le Tissier and Carlton Palmer as well as a host of former Oxford United stars.
Former Liverpool and Scotland midfielder Souness' DEBRA Legends won the competition.
Higgs and Dove have now revealed the amount of money raised for DEBRA is £35,000, with the number still rising.
"When we met with Graeme Souness a couple of years ago and he approached us and said he wanted to work with us, we thought this was an opportunity to really do that," Dove, who with Higgs won the UK Licensees of the Year award last year, told the Oxford Mail.
"So to do £35,000-plus in this event has been great and we're doing it for three years with Graeme, that's the first of a three-year agreement with the charity DEBRA and with Graeme Souness."
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"We always want to better ourselves and push the boundaries of what we can achieve," Higgs added.
"Every one we've done has been significantly better than the last and this will take our personal charity fundraising to nearly £100,000 in three years."
The day before the tournament, the pair of business owners hosted an evening with Souness and Le Tissier at their pub, with plenty more legends in attendance.
"It is very unique seeing these kind of events in a little pub in Witney," Dove continued.
"To see that many football icons in one pub on a Saturday afternoon and evening in a little pub, it was quite frightening, if I'm honest. Knowing it was our pub and we'd managed to make this happen, it was very surreal.
"Carlton Palmer came all the way from Portugal just to play in this tournament for us...it shows how incredibly grateful we are for all those players to do that for us."
DEBRA are a lesser-known charity who do not receive government funding but need lots of money to fund research into a cure for the rare disease.
"The only way people come to these things is to hear about them.
"The next part for us, whether or not we decide to do the tournament again next year, will be to go out to the bigger people, more legends, more icons of the game, get out to the whole of Oxfordshire and show Deborah our humble support and get those figures up even higher than £35,000."
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