Rugby legend Gavin ​Hastings skippering Scotland for 2025’s Doddie Aid challenge

Originally inspired by rugby’s inter-district championship and competed for by teams representing Edinburgh, Glasgow, the south and the north and midlands, as well as a team or two from outwith Scotland, 2025’s Doddie’s Active Inter-District Challenge will see the Scots join forces, with Gavin Hastings as captain, to take on the other home nations.

The annual challenge has been going since 2021 to raise funds for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, the charity founded by late Scotland and Melrose lock Doddie Weir following his diagnosis with motor neurone disease in 2016.

Running for five weeks, it was devised by Weir’s 1997 British and Irish Lions team-mate Rob Wainwright. So far, it has raised £5m for research into the disease that killed Blainslie’s Weir in 2022 at the age of 52.

Fellow ex-Lions Jamie Roberts, Tommy Bowe and Richard Hill will captain the other three nations but Hastings, 62, is determined to see his team clock up the most exercise miles, saying: “Some Lions make their mark on the pitch, others do it off it, and some just transcend it all – and that’s the place Doddie has in the hearts of everybody in the Lions community.

“Players and supporters from all four nations are fully behind the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation in its mission to find effective treatments and one day find a cure for MND.

“I hope they all kick off this massive Lions year in 2025 by signing up for Doddie Aid and helping boot this devastating disease into touch.”

Paul Thompson, director of fundraising at the charity, added: “There is certainly no mistaking the importance of Doddie to the Lions community, and the support his foundation receives from his former team-mates, friends and fans from all four nations has made a huge difference in our ongoing pursuit of a world free of MND.

“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Lions and the whole community for their unwavering backing.

“2025 all starts with Doddie Aid and there’s no better way for the Lions community to make this year special than by signing up and helping us do it for Doddie.”

For details of how to take part in the challenge, visit https://doddieaid.com/