Football: Yeovil lads start their festival campaign

THE Yeovil and District Schools’ Under-14 representative side begin their campaign later today (April 3) in the Festival of Football on the Isle of Wight.

The young guns play the first of four scheduled games this morning at 10.15am at Newport FC when they play Tameside from Greater Manchester.

Further games follow tomorrow with Bishop Auckland at Ventnor FC (10.15am); Vale of White Horse from Oxfordshire at Seaclose Park, Newport (3pm) on April 5; and Barnsley, also at Seaclose Park at 10.15am on April 6.

This will be Yeovil’s 20th visit in the festival which has now been running for 26 successive years.

Seventeen squads representing their towns and districts are in residence at the PGL Adventure Centre at Wootton with another three crossing the Solent to allow up to ten fixtures to be played a day. An innovation this year is the presence of six Under-13 squads taking part in a mini-Festival of their own which the English Schools’ FA is hoping to expand in future years.

Many past and present professional footballers have taken part in previous Festivals ranging from internationals such as Rio Ferdinand, Phil and Gary Neville and West Brown to Premiership players such as Matthew Taylor (West Ham), Kevin Davies (Bolton) and Dean Whitehead (Stoke) and hundreds of others in the Football League and Conference.

Former Yeovil boys who fall into this category are Chris Weale (Shrewsbury Town) and Martin Crainie (Coventry City). Another player who attended the Festival is James Hayter currently trying to help Yeovil Town into the Championship; he was in the local Isle of Wight side at the event.

The main function of the Festival is to give teams the opportunity of meeting opposition they cannot usually play because of distance. The emphasis throughout is on sportsmanship on the field and good behaviour off it and the only trophy on offer is the Bert Worrall Fair Play Award.

Yeovil squad: Kam Andrews, Harry Barnes, Aidan Lee Beardmore, Karl Davis, George Gillman, Sam Grinter, Jacob Hewitt, Sam Hulland, Joshua Lewis, Reece Malcolm, Harry Manley, Harry McHugh, Jack Steer, Jack Smeeton, Jamie Thompson, Callum White and  Lewis Williams.

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