County call-up for four players on St Vincent’s College elite football programme

FOUR of St Vincent College’s young football students, who are learning their trade at Gosport Borough, have been called up to represent Hampshire Colleges.

Team captain Callum Mann, defender Troy Wingfield and forwards Kian Towse and Joao Ferreira joined the squad of 18 and were involved in matches against Kent and Sussex.

The 16 to 19-year-olds on the two-year St Vincent Elite Football Academy programme, run in conjunction with Borough’s centre of excellence, study maths and English alongside at least 12 hours of football coaching a week.

Coach Pat Suraci said: “The boys are all doing really well this season. Callum has been training regularly with Gosport Borough first team, Troy our tough tackling defender has made more blocks and tackles than any other player in the team while Kian is our top assist maker for college goals and Joao is currently our second top goal scorer.”

Six college football players recently made their first team debuts for Gosport Borough in a 3-1 victory over Clanfield in a Portsmouth Senior Cup game at Privett Park.

Callum Mann, Will Ayre and Tom Rolls all started the game, while Troy Wingfield, Kian Towse and Joao Ferreira came off the bench to make their debuts. “All players gave a brilliant account of themselves in their first outing in the senior side with our college playmaker scoring the third goal for the Boro,” said Mr Suraci.

 “All of these opportunities and successes for our college players have come from the hard work and dedication they’ve shown in training day in and day out in our college programme.”

The college’s team has now won 21 games in a row and are top of the Hampshire Colleges League Division One. “The boys are also through to the semi-final of the Steve Perkins College Cup, which they hope to retain after last seasons’ triumph in the competition,” said Mr Suraci.

The course gives the youngsters a grounding in how professional and semi-professional clubs operate and provides a platform to go on to be players or coaches. Find out more about it at stvincent.ac.uk.