Ex-Scotland rugby cap Mike Biggar close to raising £40,000 for NHS

Wheelchair-bound former captain has challenged himself to walk 100 steps

Mike Biggar in action for Scotland against France in 1980. Picture: SNS

Mike Biggar, the wheelchair-bound former Scotland rugby captain who has challenged himself to walk 100 steps, has now raised almost £40,000 for the National Health Service.

Capped 24 times for Scotland between 1975 and 1980, Biggar is almost entirely dependent on his wheelchair for mobility. But, using bars for support, the 70-year-old has vowed to raise funds by walking 100 steps in the next month.

Biggar’s original target 
was £10,000 but by last 
night his Just Giving page – www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mike-biggar – had raised £39,380. Scottish Rugby revealed on Friday that he has already managed 41 steps.

Biggar – inspired by veteran fundraiser Captain Tom Moore, the 99-year-old
who raised more than 
£28 million for the NHS by walking around his garden 100 times before his 100th birthday – is eager to show his appreciation for the work of the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic.

The former London Scottish player is himself no stranger to the NHS. In 1992 he sustained serious brain damage in a car crash in Gloucestershire and, after five weeks on a life support machine, spent an extensive period in an NHS hospital relearning to walk and talk.

Biggar has required a wheelchair for the past ten years due to various falls and arthritis from his rugby days, and just last month he was rushed to hospital in Cheltenham from his home in the Cotswolds with a serious kidney infection.

“He’s pretty committed to doing this,” said his son, George, last week. “It’s his own Everest. Inspired by the amazing efforts of Captain Tom Moore and wanting to show his own appreciation of the NHS staff in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, he has set up a Just Giving page.”

To donate, go to: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mike-biggar