Nearly 2,000 people in Cambridgeshire registered to donate blood during an NHS blood and transplant campaign.
The #BleedForEngland campaign rallied people to sign up to donate blood and support their own team during the world’s biggest rugby tournament.
World Cup winners Jonny Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Ben Kay, Jason Leonard and Maggie Alphonsi backed the campaign by donating blood for the first time.
A total of 1869 new donors in the county also signed up.
Red blood cells have a shelf life of 35 days and platelets seven days.
Donations from all blood groups, but especially from O- negative, B- negative and A- negative donors, and from communities such as Black African and Black Caribbean are needed throughout the winter.
While many think that blood is used mainly for accidents and emergencies, donated blood is vital for a wide variety of life-saving procedures including helping patients with cancer or undergoing some operations.
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