Guernseyman Jon Arnold with wife Andrea and two-year-old daughter Zoe. Mr Arnold is organising a 25-hour five-a-side football match to raise money for a children’s heart charity. (0721083)

A GUERNSEYMAN has pledged to break the Guinness world record for the longest five-a-side football match ever, in honour of his baby daughter.

Former island cricketer and Elizabeth College student Jon Arnold has pledged to play a match for a period in excess of 25 hours with his friends.

The 31-year-old said he would stage the event over 4 and 5 April for the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund at the Leed’s General Infirmary, near where he lives with his wife Andrea and their baby daughter Zoe, who had a life-saving open-heart operation there within weeks of her birth.

‘Zoe had a really difficult start to life and it’s impossible to describe your feelings as parents when your baby daughter has to go through open-heart surgery,’ he said.

Zoe, now two, was born four weeks early with Down’s syndrome and with a hole between all four chambers of her heart and one valve instead of two. But even though her heart was only the size of an acorn the surgeons managed to close the hole and construct a second valve during almost nine hours in theatre.