Wembley trip for young Heysham football stars

The successful St Peters Primary School team are Harley Illingworth, Dominic Holden, Josh Radford, Scott Freeman, Oliver Whatmuff, Adam Fairclough, Noah Jones and Alfie Buckley.

St Peter’s Primary School will contest the final of the EFL Junior Cup prior to the League Two play-off final on Bank Holiday Monday at the end of May.

Locally St Peter’s won the right to represent Morecambe and after going through various stages, eventually won through to the semi-finals where they defeated Crewe Alexandra 3-2 in the semi-finals.

As well as their appearance at Wembley, the school team is also hoping to take on other schools from around the world later this year at the prestigious Danone Nations Cup, which will be held in Spain.

Billed as the World Cup for Under-11s, the youngsters must first qualify as national champions.

Their path to a possible appearance in Spain began when they won their local tournament before being crowned Lancashire champions.

That gave them the opportunity to compete at St Georges Park, in Sheffield, where they went up against 11 other teams, who werecrowned Northern Regional champions.

St Peters played four group games, first beating Northumberland 2-0, North Yorkshire 2-1 and South Yorkshire 2-0.

Their last group game was against Merseyside, who also had an 100% record, meaning whoever won went through to the final.

After a nervy encounter, the match finished 0-0 and went to a penalty shootout. St Peter’s held their nerve scoring all of their penalties to reach the final against Cheshire. After scoring an early goal, St Peter’s were pegged back late on .

Once again, the boys faced another penalty shoot-out, but kept their nerve superby to win 4-3 and become northern champions.

Headteacher Nicola Gomersall said: “As a school we love our sport and we are so proud of our football team this year.

“This is the first time in the history of St Peter’s that we have reached the final of two national competitions. This is amazing – well done boys!

“A big thankyou to all our children, parents and staff – including ex-staff – who have supported them in the rounds so far and getting them to the matches.

“A special mention must go to our sports leader Natalie Knowles.”