Footballs Next Star - SkyOne
Less than a week ago I was contacted by SkyOne about their new programme "Football's Next Star" after they had called the Kent County Office.
Basically I was asked to try and get together a maximum of 24 players for trials for the London leg which took place in the Linford Christie Stadium in West London.
The format of the programme is very similar to the Chelsea Icon series where the overall winner of the programme will receive a 1 year contract at Inter Milan under Jose Mourinho of course!
The age group was to cover 16 - 17 year olds. With many texts and phone calls made, County Office kindly agreed to lay on a coach and eventually yesterday 21 players plus myself, Simon (our County Coach) and Colin Boswell set off to the stadium along with Manjit from Crockenhill who had 2 players involved.
After a long and tiresome registration procedure it was clear that it was going to be a long day!
The lads that came along were split into two groups of 11 and 10, and were involved in a number of tests which all boys that came along took part in. In the afternoon session there was around 300 boys and ultimately the best 20 on the day as judged by the coaches would take part in a final game under the watchful eye of Milan's coaches and Jamie Redknapp who is hosting for Sky. What a very nice guy Jamie is. He chatted to all of us across the afternoon and nothing was too much trouble.
At the end of the day all the players were called in to the pitch to hear the names of the 20 players through to the final. We as Kent had 6 players in that final 20! A fantastic achievement and huge congratulations to those players.
At the end of the final game 2 players were told that they would be invited back to the final 40, to spend a weekend in London from winners from Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow and the other winners from the 3 days in London, from which 12 will be chosen to spend 5 weeks training at Inter Milan's training complex in a luxury hotel.
And guess what.............one of the two players was our own BEN GREENHALGH who Jamie Redknapp then spent 5 minutes interviewing after the game!!!
A huge congratulations to Ben and we will of course follow his progress in this unique competition.
My thanks to all the players that attended and their support for Ben in what turned out to be a long but very rewarding day!
The players that participated were :
Ben Greenhalgh - Through to Final 40.
Final 20
Adam Woollcott, Pat Taylor, Alex Flisher, Denzal Gayle, and Dolapo Shodiende
Our Squad
Joe Curtain, James Garry, Josh Wincombe, Eamon Gaughan, Tom Phipp, Karl Dent, Sam Cliff, Ray Mfon, Ola Akinwande, George Mitchell, Graeme Lugar, Jack Funnell, Steve Brading, Ian Gayle, and Alex King
The programme will be going out in January and I hope they show Adam's goal in that final game which was an absolute screamer!
I hope to be able to upload some pictures of the day and will seek any links that Sky may have about the trials.
Cheers
Ken
