Academy trio support young hopefuls

The aim of the event, held at the North Liverpool Academy, was to find the best school side, who would go on to represent Liverpool FC against other Premier League clubs in a final in May.

Kristoffer Peterson, Yalany Baio and Nacho were on hand to chat with the kids, sign shirts and boots and present medals to the winning school, St Matthews Catholic Primary.

Peterson told liverpoolfc.tv: "It's really nice to be here and to see all the young kids. It reminds me of when I was a kid - I can see how much they want to win and it's just nice to see everyone work so hard."

"My school wasn't the biggest but we had some good players. Every time we would train hard and look forward to these tournaments.

"There's some really good players here and you can see a lot of potential. I just want to get out there and play. I want to be ten years younger and to play with them."

The Premier League Schools Tournament gives hundreds of youngsters the chance to experience the thrill of being treated like a Premier League footballer and was created to improve participation in the sport.

The final will be held on May 9 at the Emirates stadium and St. Matthews will be heading down to London to represent the club in official Liverpool Standard Chartered home kits. The youngsters will also change in the same dressing rooms as the stars of the Premier League.

Coach Peter Collins, said: "It's unbelievable. I didn't think we'd get this far. The lads played really well across the games and I think we deserved it.

"What the club are doing by giving these fantastic facilities for the kids to play is fantastic. Hopefully we'll have some budding young stars of the future that have just played here today.

"It's going to be an unbelievable experience. I can't wait to go down myself. The lads have done really well."

More than 6,500 children took part in last year's event and more than 800 schools were involved.

It was a successful year for the Merseyside entrants; Liverpool beat Birmingham in the Boys U11s event, while Everton triumphed over Blackburn in the Girls U13s competition.

Gemma Smith, who oversaw Tuesday's Liverpool tournament, told Liverpoolfc.tv: "It's really important to see the support from the Premier League and the clubs are giving to grass roots sports.

"Who knows - one of these kids playing today could go on to play for one of the Premier League clubs.

"It's been quite funny watching how competitive some of the teachers are, more than the pupils. Even the losing teams were really excited to hear some of the Academy players were coming down."

Here are some great pictures from the event