A FATHER-OF-THREE will try to set a new world record by playing rugby in the North Pole – after trekking almost 100 miles to get there.

James Harding, 40, of Piltdown, near Uckfield, is part of a team hoping to raise £500,000 for charity and play a game of rugby further north than anyone ever has before.

The investment director is now training, including dragging tyres around the garden and learning to ward off polar bears, before the mission in April.

“I can do my utmost to get myself in the best shape physically,” he said, “but you don’t know how you will react mentally.”

Mr Harding is among a team of 15 – including former rugby England internationals – who plan to trek to the 1996-certified magnetic North Pole, then play a game of seven-a-side rugby.

The Arctic Rugby Challenge is the most extreme challenge yet organised by – and in aid of – rugby charity Wooden Spoon, which helps disadvantaged children and young people.

It is sponsored by LMAX Exchange and Mr Harding’s employer, Quilter Cheviot. It is also being supported in Sussex by Cumnor House School in Haywards Heath and Caffyns Land Rover in Lewes.

Mr Harding, who hopes to individually raise £50,000, said: “It should be amazingly fulfilling once we’ve made it and the thought of the brilliant causes which will benefit from the money will be enough to keep us going.”

He said his children Isobel, nine, Amelia, seven, and Harry, three, think it will be a “wonderful adventure” for their father, who is a keen rugby player.

Led by leading adventurer Jock Wishart, the men, including former rugby stars Tim Stimpson and Ollie Phillips, will pull a 60kg sledge across up to 20 miles of ice a day, starting out from Resolute Bay in north Canada amid temperatures pushing minus 50C.

Former English Rugby Union player Lee Mears will referee the match at the end of their trek, with all players wearing polar kit under their rugby shirts. Mr Harding added: “While we don’t think the cold is going to be such an issue, the biggest problem we have is what we do when we stop – we will have built up a certain temperature and then it suddenly drops.”