Whitwell: Premiership star Matt Lowton joins pupils on start line

Whitwell Primary School held a football themed sports day with special guest Aston Villa footballer Matt Lowton. Pictured with Matt are pupils Lewis, Jaydan, Lucy and Julia

Whitwell Primary School pupils enjoyed an extra special sports day this year as they were joined on the start line by a Premiership star.

Matthew Lowton, 25, a top-flight footballer for Aston Villa attended the World Cup themed sports day on Wednesday 2nd July.

The ex-Sheffield United defender, from Clowne, watched on as youngsters at the foundation stage of their education raced against each other in teams of six in seven races.

Matt said: “There is a lot of bad press about youngsters sitting on the Xbox and playing computer games so it was nice to come down and see the kids enjoying the day.”

“I went to school just up the road from here in Clowne and my mum grew up a stones throw away from here so it was nice to come down and see the local community.”

“It was nice to see the football-themed races obviously with my background.”

Youngsters were randomly selected into teams competing in the Brazil 2014 World Cup including Ecuador and Portugal and each team had a football song.

Acting head teacher Iain Wilson said: “We feel that sport is a real important and football is massively important to the children of our school.”

“We themed some of our events so they were more football-themed but were not discriminatory to those who have not got football skills.”

“Instead of the egg and spoon we had the football on a football boot race.”