Telford youngsters earn high marks on the pitch

The school, which is renowned for producing footballers who go on to play professionally, qualified for ten national finals that were played at the home of West Brom, The Hawthorns, and Stoke's bet365 Stadium.

The school had both boys and girls teams in the finals but it was four boys teams that brought the silverware back to Shropshire.

The Boys Elite under-12s beat Calday Grange Grammar School 2-1 while the Boys Elite under-13s beat Northampton School for Boys 3-2.

There was also a brilliant win for the under-13s A team as they beat the same opposition 2-1 to make it back-to-back wins over Northampton School for Boys - made even more special by restrictions as that level only allowing four academy players to feature.

The Boys under-14 A team also beat Cleeve School 4-2 - all the winners played their finals at The Hawthorns.

And Des Lyttle, a former West Brom player, who has been director of football at Thomas Telford for 11 years, said it has been a special season.

"To get to finals it is really hard," said Lyttle, who was part of Albion's squad to achieve promotion to the Premier League 2002/03.  "A lot of schools have got football programs like ourselves.

"So to get to a final is a great achievement, and then to go on and win a final, is an even bigger achievement.

"It doesn't matter what the kids go onto they will never forget it. They will have played at grounds like Derby County, Stoke or West Brom like where they have been this season.

"They are memorable days. We bring out everything as a school to bring out the spectators. A lot of staff come and each age group has the full year which is around 200 kids watching.

"We don't forget them as staff either. It does not matter what we have done in our career or where we have played, we want to make it special for the kids.

The season is long and the latter stages of the competition involves lots of travelling but Lyttle is really proud of their achievements.

He continued: "There is a lot of work that goes into it. You can play eight or nine rounds and start pretty locally and then you move into Cheshire and Liverpool but can go even further up to Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough like we have done this season.

"We have had a team from Plymouth come to us so there is so much travelling involved, and playing on different surfaces, not a lot of the schools are blessed to have great facilities like ours but still to get to 10 is brilliant and to win four of them is a superb achievement.

"I would like to have won more but when you at the year as a whole it is something we are really proud of."