West Ham in the Community scored another massive success with their half-term holiday course at Laindon's James Hornsby School.
More than 150 youngsters aged from six to 14 attended the latest two-day session of coaching and competitions and coach Steve Tapley admitted that it was a "phenomenal" number.
He said: "We had other courses at Chadwell Heath and Chingford and numbers at both were around the 60-70 mark, which is what you'd expect at this time.
In fine spirits - it's the Rovers Return and Nags Head in competition in the battle of the TV pubs at the West Ham in the Community Soccer School Picture: MAXINE CLARKE
"However, the courses have taken off in a phenomenal fashion at Basildon and it seems that youngsters and their parents from south-east Essex just can't get enough of them.
"It's certainly not a case of quantity replacing quality. The standards of youngsters attending James Hornsby is tremendously high. We had over 30 six-year-olds there last week and they were tremendously eager to learn and showed great levels of skill and application for their age groups."
The youngsters received morning tuition before competing in penalty and World Cup style competitions in the afternoons while the elder age groups decided to play an event based on pub names from TV, the Premiership and international sides were used by the middle and younger groups.
Published Wednesday October 30, 2002
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