A darts team playing a 24-hour marathon ended up playing for 25 hours - because the clocks went back!

Members of North Oxford Conservative Club darts team played through the night to raise cash for Becky Kelly, a single mum who needs a gravestone for her two-year-old son.

Nine players stayed at the oche from noon on Saturday to noon on Sunday - which turned into 25 hours because the clocks went back. They raised more than £1,200 in sponsorship.

Becky, of Rose Hill, Oxford, lost her son, Declan, in August to an undetected heart condition. After his death, she found she could not afford the £900 needed for a headstone for his grave.

Darts team member Alan French, of St Martin's Road, Rose Hill, organised the marathon after hearing about Becky's plight through his wife Sharon, a fellow visitor to the Rose Hill family centre. Dad-of-five Alan, 29, said afterwards: "I am absolutely exhausted - we did not realise the clocks were going back when we organised this.

"But it is all worth it to help Becky. My nephew died a few years ago and my aunt could not afford a headstone then. I did not want Becky to go through the same thing."

The other members of the marathon darts team were Victoria Betnay, Sharon Haynes, Adrian Hunter, Paul Taylor, Richard Reveley, Tony Jones and Dave Presley. Regulars at the Conservative club, in Rogers Street, Summertown, also joined in and made donations on the night.

The team also plans to make a donation to the Special Care Baby Unit at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital on Becky's behalf.

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