|
|
 |
You are > Home > A star is born
|
Thursday, July 22, 2010
A star is born
A YOUNG Kerry soccer prodigy has taken his first steps towards stardom, and all thanks to his mother’s intuition.
12-year-old Charlie Purcell, from Glenbeigh, is the player of the moment in Kerry soccer after his stunning victory in the International Skills competition at the Bobby Charlton Soccer School in Manchester.
But if it wasn’t for his mother, Sarah, then the talented Liverpool supporter would not now be spending his summer months off school preparing for the World Skills final that will be held in September.
"Charlie has always showed great potential and we have been told that a lot so we decided that we needed to help him up his game and realise that promise," Sarah, originally from Liverpool, told The Kingdom.
"I was on the internet and I saw the Bobby Charlton Soccer School, and we thought it would be a good idea to send him there for a week.
"I spoke with his coaches in Killorglin to see if we weren’t getting too ahead of ourselves, sending Charlie there, but they agreed that it was a good idea.
"Thankfully, it has worked out really well for Charlie and this might really spur him on to even greater things now."
Charlie, the oldest kid in the family and whose father Jer is also a huge Liverpool fan, is now looking forward to the world finals in September; an event that he can’t wait for.
"It will be class to take part in the world finals and I have a lot of work to do before I go there," the levelheaded Killorglin FC star said.
"I had a great time over in Manchester. I was tested in different skills, like my control, shooting, short passing, long passing and dribbling.
"It was great fun and I was really shocked when I found out that I had won."
And Charlie’s amazing win, considering that he was competing with boys between 12 and 16-yearsold now means that he is following in the footsteps of a certain David Beckham who won the same competition in 1986.
So is Charlie ready to bend it like Becks? The answer is a resounding yes, though the Glenbeigh native, who shares his birthday with Michael Owen, is a bigger fan of his Liverpool hero Steven Gerrard.
A talented left back or right back, Charlie was deployed as a winger and a forward during the weeklong soccer adventure in Manchester.
And it showed how much he enjoyed the change of scenery as he went on to actually win the skills competition. In the impending world final in September, he will now be competing against up to 12 other talented young soccer stars from various Bobby Charlton academies all around the world. And he can’t wait.
With a host of scouts from all the major clubs set to cast their expert eyes over the budding soccer wannabes in the world final, the door to the big time has now opened for Kerry’s answer to David Beckham.
And, as his mother explains, if he shows the same level of coolness as he did at the first day of the academy in Manchester then he will give himself every chance of conquering the world.
"When I dropped him off on the first day in Manchester, I couldn’t but notice that all the other kids seemed to be massive, a lot bigger than Charlie," Sarah said.
"I said to him ‘they’re huge’ but he just turned to me and said ‘don’t worry, I’m going to play my own game.’ And that’s just what he did.
"We are so proud of him. It will be so exciting when he takes part in the world finals and he knows that he has a lot of work to do in the next few weeks but he loves football and it comes so naturally to him."
A big believer that practice makes perfect, Charlie Purcell is certainly following in famous footsteps in the shape of David Beckham and as one national paper’s headline stated in the past week – Remember the name: Charlie Purcell. That says it all really.
Main News Page |
Previous Page
|
|
|
|
