AN Evesham football team hopes to raise thousands of pounds for charity after players were involved in an horrific car crash.

Members of the Blue Maze team - previously known as Aston Arygle - are to face an Aston Villa Old Boys side at the Redditch FC ground in September.

All the funds raised will be shared between the County Air Ambulance and Worcestershire Royal Hospital where it is hoped the money will go towards the cost of a ventilator.

Members of the team were travelling home to Moreton after playing in a five-a-side tournament in September 1998 when their car, containing five young men, was involved in an horrific head-on collision in Badsey.

The 26-year-old driver, Jason Cowley, was cut free from the wreckage by firefighters after an hour and a half and airlifted to hospital in Worcester.

He spend six-and-a-half days on a ventilator before regaining consciousness.

Simon, who was driving the car behind, said: "It was a head-on collision at high speed. There was nothing any of us could do."

His brother, Mark, who was sitting behind the driver of the crashed car, said: "It was awful. My arm was smashed and I finished up losing my elbow altogether. I had to have reconstructive work done on the middle of my arm and will remain an invalid for life.

"Jason's face was pushed up into his head and that all had to be reconstructed afterwards.

"There is no doubt in anyone's mind that without the air ambulance and the ventilator at the Worcester hospital, he would have died.

"That is why we want to do our bit now and give something back to the air ambulance and to the hospital."

"Had it not been for the air ambulance and the hospital, one of our former players would be dead by now," said team manager Simon Hardiman.