LONDON, January 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Great Ormond Street Hospital in London benefited from a charitable donation after Piers Morgan and Alan Sugar donned their boxing gloves in a battle to collect the most followers on Twitter by Christmas.

The recent 'tweet off' between the two stars set the scene for an interesting challenge to emerge. Only days after joining the Twitter community, Piers Morgan bet rival Lord Sugar that he could exceed Sugar's 200,000 followers in time for Christmas day. If Morgan won the wager, then Sugar had to donate donate GBP5,000 to Great Ormond Street Hospital (http://www.gosh.nhs.uk/). If Morgan did not exceed Sugar's Twitter following, then he would be the one to donate GBP5,000 to the children's charity (http://www.gosh.org/).

Alan Sugar emerged from the competition victorious with Piers Morgan having to hand over a cheque for GBP5,000 to the children's hospital as a result. After conceding defeat however, Piers doubled his donation to GBP10,000 while Alan pledged to quintuple that amount, donating a total of GBP50,000.

Both Morgan and Sugar held nothing back during the competition. Piers Morgan jabbed at his rival, tweeting: "Remember the dentist's warning everyone: too much Sugar will rotten you. So unfollow Lord_Sugar immediately." Morgan remained confident in his ability to beat Lord Sugar's follower count by Christmas day. "I'm not liked, no. I'm loved," he claimed.

As Piers Morgan flew to New York to prepare for his 2011 American television prime time show "Piers Morgan Tonight," Lord Alan Sugar tweeted, "I need to warn the USA about Piers Morgan."

"What's your flight number, I want to send apology to cabin staff, they don't know what they are letting themselves in for."

As Piers Morgan's follower count closed the gap every day, he tweeted to Sugar: "Gap closing every single day... start panicking my Lord." In the end though, Lord Sugar was the victor. Great Ormond Street Hospital gratefully received the donations from both Morgan and Sugar last week.

Charity challenges (http://www.gosh.org/get-involved/) and similar fundraising ideas (http://www.gosh.org/get-involved/hold-your-own-event/) now make a significant contribution to donations to UK charities.