Charity benefit from Cowan-Dickie's epic gaming stint

By Mike Smith
19/5/20

Now we all know somebody who is an avid, online gamer.

However, we challenge you to find someone as dedicated as Exeter Chiefs and England star Luke Cowan-Dickie.

The Cornish-born hooker is well known for his game play, which has previously seen him hit No.1 status in the world on one aspect of the game ‘Call of Duty’.

And with the current lockdown crisis highlighting the need for people to stay indoors, Cowan-Dickie has made the most of staying at home to hone his playing skills even further. As well as competing for the Exeter Chiefs team in an online tournament involving other Premiership club, last weekend the 26-year-old challenged himself to spend 24-hours playing the popular gaming franchise Fortnite.

Starting at 3pm on Friday, Cowan-Dickie geared himself up for what would be a mammoth task, attempting to play throughout the night into the early morning, only allowing himself breaks for food and drink.

The idea brought forward by Cowan-Dickie himself is rarely completed, but after pledging he would be raising money for the Exeter Chiefs Foundation, the official charity of the Exeter Chiefs, he knew that he would have to fight his way through the night for a worthy cause.

The format of the game also allowed Luke to be joined by fans, friends and team-mates, including Jack Nowell, Dave Ewers, Max Bodilly, Stu Townsend, Olly Woodburn, as well as brothers Joe and Sam Simmonds.

“We had a number of the boys from the club playing, also playing custom lobbies meant that I could give everyone a code and they could join my game,” said Cowan-Dickie. “Most people who joined the stream were able to play the game with me as well. It was great having people’s parents coming in videoing the screen, speaking to people down the mic that were big Chiefs fans, and hearing kids ringing their friends was good to hear, it was great all round.

The gaming stream hosted on the online platform Twitch was a huge success with Cowan-Dickie amassing over 100,000 views in total across the 24 hours with a peak of over 3,000 watching him at any one time.

“Having people watching and taking part in the stream made it much easier for me to keep going, as well as knowing it was raising money for such a great cause,” added Cowan-Dickie.“I drank a lot of coffee and Red Bull, I also ordered some Greendale fish and chips in the evening to get me through the night, and it certainly helped.”

Setting up a Virgin Money Giving page, Luke is well on his way towards his £1,000 target for the Foundation. However, he’s not quite there yet and supporters can still donate by clicking here

"Hopefully we can reach that goal, and maybe in the near future, we could set up some more things like this,” said Cowan-Dickie. “I've had some great responses back from fans and gamers, especially with a lot of people having spent the last eight weeks in lockdown, and it was great to get the Exeter Chiefs community involved as well.”

You can also go back and watch Luke’s stream again, his 24-hour stream is still available via his Twitch channel which you can find here - Twitch.tv/CowanDickie