IT was an awesome task for even the biggest sandwich lover.

Four hungry men bravely took on the Man v Sub challenge – to eat a 6ft Subway sandwich between two of them – laid on at the Subway branch in Eastleigh.

Chris Thomas, 26, and Gareth Hughes, 34, from Eastleigh, employees at Juniper Bridge, an Eastleigh-based technical support company, took on members of staff Alex Nicolaou, 20, of Thornhill, and Ben Hayden, 24, of Freemantle.

Egged on by a crowd of family, friends, staff and passersby they got stuck into the turkey, ham, beef, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, peppers and onions melter.

Debra Law and daughter Jodie, who run the branch in Market Street, came up with the idea after watching reality TV show Man v Food.

Debra said she had heard of a similar challenge at a branch in America in which a customer ate a 6ft sandwich in an hour and 15 minutes.

The event, on Saturday, was overseen by Eastleigh Mayor Tony Noyce, who said he would not even have attempted it.

Both teams managed to eat roughly 31 inches of their 6ft sandwich in the time limit of an hour.

Team Juniper Bridge triumphed, eating half an inch more than their rivals and Chris was awarded a mini Oscar-style statue for eating the most.

The day, which also included a tombola and collection, raised money for charity CLIC Sargent.

Ben said: “My stomach hurts. It was just the amount of bread.

“It just became hard to chew and even harder to swallow.”

Gareth said: “Never ever again – I won’t be eating Subway for a while.”