THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Irrepressible Munday still to reach his peak
DAVID FERGUSON
RICKY Munday has faced a few challenges in his time with Glasgow Hawks, but relegation battles, league championships and cup finals fade a little alongside the mammoth task he has set himself for next summer.

The popular Hawks centre will not be available to the Anniesland outfit in the final part of the season because he has taken up an offer from his employers, the Bank of Scotland, to spend four months at an orphanage in Nairobi. That bit is not too unusual - he follows another employee in March and will be replaced in June by a third.

In July and August, however, he plans to scale the three highest peaks in Africa. That is not so common. A chartered accountant by trade and senior analyst with Bank of Scotland Corporate in Edinburgh, Munday is a well-known rugby player with three league championship and two Scottish Cup medals in his possession.

Off the field, however, he is now developing a reputation for pitting his courage against some of the greatest challenges on Earth. He ran more than five marathons in seven days through the Sahara in 2004, in the notorious Marathon des Sables and, last year, climbed the 23,000ft (7,000m) Khan Tengri on the Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan border with his friend Dr Mark Toshner, not long after 14 climbers had been killed by an avalanche trying to scale the same mountain.

Glasgow rugby players once had a reputation for heading to Europe's ski slopes to avoid the ravages of winter rugby, but this takes such escape plans to new heights, literally.

"I am pretty excited, and nervous I suppose," Munday admitted. "Khan Tengri was the first real climb I did and the three mountains in Africa all offer different challenges. The first one, Mount Stanley in Uganda - the third highest in Africa - is quite inaccessible so will take me around nine days to get to it, while Mount Kenya (the second highest) is a really technical rock climb, over a day or two, which few people actually go right to the top of, and that scares me a bit.

"Then there's Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest in Africa at 5,895 metres (over 19,000ft). But I'm a determined person. Once I'd gone to Morocco I realised you could set yourself challenges that seem impossible, but focus hard on and make achievable."

Munday's adventures all raise money for charity and the trip to Kenya is part of the Bank of Scotland Corporate's link with Ann Gloag's Balcraig Foundation. Munday is hoping to raise £5,000 for the orphanage as well as inspire youngsters while he is there, but is currently scouring his home country for the necessary funds to help with the assault on the mountains.

He will work for Thomas Barnardo's House Orphanage in Nairobi, currently home to 180 orphaned, abandoned and destitute children aged from birth to early 20s. The home is entirely reliant on donations and Munday will be based at its growing commercial department, which runs fundraising projects.

"I'm really lucky to get a chance like this," he said, "and I felt it would be good, while there, to try and raise funds for the orphanage. I also hope to have some sort of positive influence. By necessity, the children have a number of strong female role models in their lives, including the 'House Mothers' at each unit, and the majority of volunteers are female. It's important that they also have male role models and I hope to inspire the children to set their goals in life high."

Closer to home, Hawks supporters will be pleased to see the 30-year-old back on the field this weekend, when the team travel to Dundee HSFP. A loss on the back of defeat to Edinburgh Accies last weekend would draw them into the relegation dogfight. And though Munday continues to set his sights high off the field, he is not yet ready to hang up his boots.

He said: "Work commitments make training difficult and playing rugby makes preparing for these kinds of challenge tougher too, but I have loved playing for the Hawks and next season would be my 10th in the 1st XV so I want to keep going.

"But in 2009 I'm planning to climb Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain, in the Himalayas, and then I want to have a go at Mount Everest in 2010. Why? To prove I can, I think, and raise money. I get bored sitting about for too long. I love my job, but I love challenges too. Getting yourself into club training in Scotland in January and February can be tough and maybe I should just go skiing, but it's good to really challenge yourself."

Glasgow Hawks players and members, and Bank of Scotland Corporate have pledged money to help not only the £5,000 orphanage campaign, but also Munday's climbs.

He is hopeful the expeditions will not prove as difficult as anything yet achieved on or off the rugby field.

MUNDAY'S MOUNTAINS
RICKY Munday will next year leave rugby fields to tackle three mountains in Africa to raise money for a Namibian orphanage.

The Glasgow Hawks player's thirst for adventure began in 2004, when he ran the gruelling Marathon des Sables, a 151-mile endurance race across the Sahara Desert in Morocco. In 2010, he aims to climb Mount Everest, but he has other peaks to conquer before then.

2006 Attempted to conquer Khan Tengri, Kyrgyzstan (7,010m/22,999ft). Munday reached a height of 5,800m before he was halted by bad weather

2008 Will try to climb Mount Stanley (5,109m/16,763ft), Mount Kenya (5,199m/17,057ft) and Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895m/19,341ft), Africa's tallest peak

2009 Will turn attention to Cho Oyu (8,201m/26,902ft), sixth highest in world

2010 Munday's ultimate goal: Mount Everest (8,850m/29,029ft), highest mountain in the world

This article was originally posted on 7-Dec-2007, 08:22 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 7-Dec-2007, 08:28.