SOCCER Saturday's Jeff Stelling arrived in Wellington after completing the first leg of his epic March For Men charity challenge.

Jeff is taking on 15 walking marathons in 15 days, travelling from St James Park in Exeter all the way up to its namesake stadium in Newcastle.

He is taking on the marathon challenge to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer UK.

Jeff received a warm welcome from the crowd who gathered at Wellington Football Club this evening (Friday, June 2) to support Jeff and his fellow walkers.

Speaking to the Gazette, the 62-year-old former Countdown presenter said: "I don’t feel too bad, it’s the first day – the big test will come in an hour or two’s time, when you start to stiffen up and your legs start to ache and the calves need to be in decent shape to go again tomorrow – but apart from that I feel fine!"

He said the humid weather had made it tricky to start with, but this led to quite refreshing rain for the home stretch.

"We had good support today" he said. "Although there were a lot of country roads obviously and a fair few roads where you don’t see many people but there were lots of people tooting their horns and waving.

"We’ve had a really nice welcome here at Wellington – it is a pretty damp evening so its nice to see so many people here to support."

Jeff said he did not mind what time he finished in but did like to leave enough time to head to the next starting venue to cool off, have a bath and some food ready for the next day's task.

Jeff launched the March For Men to help raise awareness for prostate cancer, a disease which one man in eight in the UK will get.

"One man in the UK will die every hour from prostate cancer, so from the time we started this morning in Exeter at 8am to finishing at 7pm, 11 men will have died of prostate cancer during that time.

"So something’s got to be done to raise awareness and make sure people know they might be vulnerable to it – it is not about scaring people, just making them aware."

He is hoping to raise £500,000 in total through the course of the challenge.

So with football season all but over, what has Jeff got lined up for the summer to keep him occupied?

"Funnily enough I'll be following football of a different variety once I've completed the March For Men," he said.

"I will be doing a project on Gaelic Football, learning all about the sport before commentating on the All-Ireland Final in front of 80,000-odd fans in September.

"It's going to be a challenge but it will keep me busy!"

You can keep up with all of Jeff's journey by visiting prostatecanceruk.org/jeffsmarch.