BEAR Scotland held its twelfth annual charity five-a-side football tournament on 26 April 2024. Scotland’s leading trunk road operating company saw co-workers become competitors to raise £1,382 for Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH).

The football fundraising for the mental health charity saw eight teams of BEAR Scotland employees fiercely battle for the title in Perth College Academy of Sports & Wellbeing, their first time in the venue. Scottish FA Referees’ Association provided two referees to make sure the battles were fair.

Iain Murray, BEAR Scotland’s Managing Director said: “This annual tradition, which started in 2010, is particularly important to us as a company. It is a great show of employee engagement and demonstrating our support for one of Scotland’s vital mental health charities, SAMH.”

As ever it was a hard-fought contest with two teams from each trunk road unit BEAR operates in, going into the semi-finals it became a North West versus South East competition. This continued to the finals, a real head-to-head of the two units.

The battle between the North West’s Old Timers and the South East’s BEAR Munich was so close that it went to penalties but despite the South Easts’ best effort to keep the title, the Old Timers won 4-0.