We in the ‘Heathen Horde’ team completed our challenge on Saturday 28th March 2026!
The members of this team are essentially a group of London/ Kent based metalheads, either musicians in bands themselves and/ or huge fans of the genre who go to great lengths to support the scene and keep it alive. This whole team is a part of the London Metal Coalition, which is a community initiative made up of over 70 bands all joining forces, combining their hard earned knowledge and experience in the industry, to support and promote each other- as per our motto: ‘A Rising Tide lifts all Boats’.
Within this community are people who have lost loved ones to war, or war related trauma and some may have even served themselves. We particularly make a huge point of supporting those suffering from any mental health issues (whether they are war related or not), because many within our community have experienced them.
While most of our time and energy generally goes towards keeping the scene alive, one member of the community, Liv Kennett, seeking ways to help the world in these times of rising tensions, came across the ‘March In March’ ad on Instagram and put forward the idea to her band (Call Of Fenrir) and the LMC. Thanks to prior walking experience among the band members of the chosen route (thanks to bad decisions not at all involving late night boozing), we knew what the decided course would be - a 13 mile walk from the Swan & Mitre in Bromley, to the Black Heart in Camden. It was a great way of in-keeping with the ‘themes’ of metal to walk from one of our regular music venues to the other. We also named the challenge after one of our band’s songs, thus the ‘March Of The Heathen Horde’ was born!
Our team of 8 left the Swan just after 2.30pm on that sunny afternoon, threatened only by a tiny drop of light rain, which soon eased off.
We walked through Catford, Peckham Rye, Elephant and Castle (We stopped in the Wetherspoons for a Loo break and some team additions), over Waterloo bridge and all the way down Waterloo Road, naturally passing some great photo spots as you can see!
We made it to the Black Heart at around 8.10pm, with one man down (wrong type of shoes!) and a few others joining us mid way. We checked in on our band Instagram page with regular live streams and story posts of the walk throughout the day.
As of the date of writing this (2 days after the challenge), we have raised £1468 for Combat Stress, an achievement of which we are immensely proud!
An amazing, soul cleansing journey of endurance, resilience, friendship and perseverance with some fantastic memories made. The Heathen Horde will surely be back for more!
We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our amazing sponsors, friends, family and fans for supporting us in this journey! We hope it helps those who have given everything for us to allow us to live our dreams- we know the cost can be high!
The Heathen Horde are: Liv, Joe, Tom, Chris, Tyler, Casey, Matt, Holly, Fran and Drew.
