Meet the Manc doing a kebab-themed ‘Supersize Me’ to raise money for his little girl living with nerve tumours
An ordinary guy with an extraordinary appetite, Derek has decided to put his taste for junk food to good use - attempting to eat 60 kebabs in November.
The secret to a successful fundraiser? Capture the imagination.
Charity 10ks and mountain treks will always get donations from friends and family. But to grasp the attention of the wider public, you need to move the goalposts a bit.
Just ask Derek Breakey: The Manc who’s swapping a marathon for a ‘kebabathon’.
An ordinary guy with an extraordinary appetite, Derek has decided to put his body through a very different kind of test in exchange for charity donations.
Instead of hitting the pavement, he’ll be hitting the takeaway – putting his fondness for fatty foods to good use by attempting to eat 60 kebabs in a single month.
Throughout November, Derek will be scoffing down at least two kebabs a day to hit his target.
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A bold mission, especially given the fact that finishing a single kebab can leave many ordinary people curled up in the fetal position.
For many, kebabs are just greasy dishes whipped up to satiate the messy appetite of our drunken alter egos after dark.
But Derek, a self-professed kebab connoisseur, is hungry to change that perception.
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“The kebab game is much deeper and spans much farther than Joe Bloggs thinks,” he declares.
According to Derek, kebabs are far more complex than many people are willing to give them credit for. He’s one of the biggest posters on the Manchester Donner Connoisseurs social media group – and he’s even got his own criteria as to what makes a truly great kebab (quality meat, permeated bread, fresh salad, made-in-house sauce, depth of flavour).
But Derek’s month-long Kebabathon isn’t just a spur of the moment dive into flour-wrapped decadence. It’s an important journey with an even more important purpose.
With every bite he takes, Derek will be helping out his daughter.
The 34-year-old has taken on this challenge to raise funds for Nerve Tumours UK – a charity very close to heart.
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Derek’s little girl suffers from a genetic condition known as neurofibromatosis – which causes abnormal cell growth in the nerves.
By conquering 60 kebabs in less than a month, he’s hoping to turn a few heads – and support an amazing charity.
“I have set the target at £1,000, but realistically any amount of money I raise I will be happy with,” Derek tells us.
“I am basically giving myself 30 days to eat two kebabs every day. Totalling in 60 kebabs in 30 days in November.
“The most I have eaten in one month before was 39 in 28 days.”
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Taking on so many kebabs at once comes with risks, which is why Derek going to be eating healthily outside of the gorging windows – a little like Adam Richman used to do on Man v Food.
“I am indefinitely going to reduce my intake of unhealthy foods during this time,” Derek says.
“The intake of calories and fats have to be taken into account. And I am very much aware of the pros and cons of such an intake.
“I will be frequenting various establishments that me and the guys on the kebab connoisseurs group all know and love. And ones I haven’t tried yet. Each one will be getting a full review from me!”
You can follow every mouthful of Derek’s Kebabathon progress by joining the Manchester Donner Connoisseurs group, and you can donate to his worthy cause by visiting the fundraising page online.
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Fundraisers don’t come much more curious than this, so it should come as little surprise that he’s already attracted hundreds of pounds in donations before the challenge has even begun.
Liam Broady is on the comeback – here’s why you need to watch out for him at Wimbledon
The Manc
Local tennis player Liam Broady is quietly rising back up the ranks on the ITF Tour, and here’s why we think you should watch out for him come Wimbledon 2026 this summer.
He is physical proof that the ATP Tour ranking means so much to a player’s career.
The Stockport-born tennis player has suffered many injury setbacks since turning pro in 2014. With a host of ankle and back injuries plaguing his playing career, he has had to turn to the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Tour to climb the rankings once again.
He is currently placed at 283* on the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Tour after reaching two semi-finals in the space of a month.
With wins on two of Portugal’s hard courts in Faro and Santo António, the 32-year-old has climbed from rank 303 at the start of the year to under the threshold in less than three months.
His hard work on outdoor courts is paying off as his seeding is slowly improving, and his opponents are becoming less of a challenge.
For the unititated, the ATP ranking is decided by a points system that determines your playing level, and therefore who you can possibly draw, with lower seeds getting tougher games as they need more points, and vice versa.
These point tallies factor into every win, loss, serve, and shot as it propels you up or down the table.
With an injury over Christmas, the Stopfordian Team GB player came back stronger for the start of the annual tournament calendar and now looks to be in fighting form on the ITF Tour.
He’s definitely had to tackle some obstacles over the years, both on and off the court…
Competing solely on outdoor hard courts to gain his fitness levels back is necessary, but the grass courts – his speciality – will come around with time and consistent form, with Wimbledon being his home tournament and his highlight of the competitive calendar.
His career best ranking was 93, after becoming the first British wildcard entry to beat an ATP top five player in 2023 when defeating Casper Rudd on Wimbledon’s centre court.
His win against the Norwegian in round two sent him into the top 100 rankings for the first time, and into the shining spotlight alongside British tennis stars.
The adverse effects of time away from the tour are clear to see with Broady’s peaks and dips in the table below; this means taking a hit to player motivation, game-to-game momentum and teamworking within doubles pairs.
Liam Broady’s career rankings progression chart. (Credit: ATP Tour)
It is a likely situation for players to neglect their doubles career without the added stress of injury, so if they are to arise, it does not just impact individual physicality levels but also communication between doubles pairs.
A fellow British player with similar injury problems is Emma Raducanu, who rose to fame with a shocking US Open grand slam win as a qualifier. Since her win, she has had multiple surgeries, which saw her plummet down WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) standings due to time spent off court.
The issues that come with injury upsets can make a career really difficult to reclaim, even at a young age; tour rankings can be brutal on game time and match opponents, such as Broady’s Wimbledon draw against Holland’s Van De Zandschulp and Raducanu’s recent draw against American no.3 Anisimova.
We hope to see Team GB’s athletes fit and ready to fight on tour, and we have a strong feeling we’ll see native talent Broady back in the spotlight where he belongs.
Gig review | KEO at the O2 Ritz in Manchester – Sometimes you just KNOW…
Danny Jones
Fontaines D.C., Turnstile, Wunderhorse, Sleep Token, Neck Deep; sometimes it only takes a few listens and a live show to KNOW that a band is going to catch fire and go on to be huge – for Audio North and KEO, it only took a few.
But having now seen KEO for a third time, collectively, we’re more convinced than ever that they’re going to be massive.
Sadly, a prior engagement meant that we just missed catching the support act, Tooth (though we did hear great things rumbling around the eager young crowd), but there was no chance we were going to miss this lot show off how very good they are at what they do.
And there was absolutely no chance they were going to disappoint us, either…
We first caught this fast-rising post-grunge outfit live in action at Kendal Calling last year, where they somehow turned a daytime slot on the Woodlands stage into a moody mid-evening mosh.
They had even less fully produced and officially released music out then, but then we had the pleasure of watching them at The Key Club in Leeds this past October, and they were even better; punchier, more graduated at their game, and their fandom seemed plenty strong already.
As it turns out, that same progression proved true in Manchester, as KEO played their biggest headline show to date, and that same cult following only appeared more fervent than ever.
They might be based down in the capital, with roots in Portugal, brothers Finn and Conor having grown up there, but they certainly know a thing or two about how to please a Northern audience.
Of course, we’re sure they go off just as hard down in the capital – in fact, we’re certain they do – but the response they got from two sold-out rooms full of Yorkshire folk and us equally discerning Mancs felt like they had well and truly passed the litmus.
With flying colours, may we add.
Everything from the raw ’90s rock feel to the aesthetic hits just right. (Credit: Audio North)
It’s also worth noting that these London lads have built up this hype like very few ever manage to do: by developing a sterling live reputation right from the off and putting top-notch shows first.
For those unaware, they only just released their first five-track EP, Siren, back in June 2025, yet they’ve been packing out venues and festival stages pretty much since day dot, with die-hards growing their love for the band via performance and initially only learning the lyrics through social clips and snippets online.
While some have questioned why they’ve been chosen to headline this year’s Neighbourhood Festival here in Manchester city centre before they’ve even dropped a debut album, you only need to hear the entire Ritz screaming back the lyrics to ‘I Lied, Amber’, ‘Thorn’ and ‘Hands’ to know they fit the bill.
Frontman Finn pours so much unbridled power and emotion into his vocals, guitarist Jimmy Lanwern didn’t even need to look to know that his riffs were ripping the roof off, and they’ve quickly moved far beyond the early Wunderhorse parallels – they’re their own beast just waiting to be fully woken.
The Manc -
29th October 2020 
