College students get England call up

The Andy Griffin Football Academy (AGFA) students Ethan Cartwright, aged 16 and David Neligwa, aged 17 who both previously studied at Wolstanton High School were nominated for the highly competitive selection process by Head Coach, Andy Griffin and Academy Manager, Dave Beswick based upon their impressive match performances and commitment within the Academy.

Both students underwent a rigorous selection process, competing for a place in the national team against hundreds of other young hopefuls from all over the country. After the final selection processes at St George’s Park and Lilleshall National Sports Centre in earlier this year, Ethan received the news he would join the final 25 man ECFA squad and David the 18 man ESFA squad. Since then Ethan has been called up to play in midfield for the ECFA national team, who recently travelled to Italy to take part in the prestigious Roma Caput Mundi tournament, where England faced games against the host nation Italy, Wales and Romania.

Striker David, will next compete on Friday 16 March, when England ESFA U18s takes on the Republic of Ireland in the Centenary Shield competition, which is hosted at Kenilworth Road, home of Luton Town Football Club. He will take part in further fixtures scheduled against Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland later in the year.

Andy Griffin, Head Coach of the AGFA squad said: “The achievements of Ethan and David really showcase the best of what the Andy Griffin Football Academy has to offer in developing grassroots footballing talent. Our purpose is to create these types of opportunities for our players, to ultimately help them land either a semi-professional or professional football contract.”

David Sutton, Academy of Sport Manager at NULC said: “Both lads have played an instrumental part in the recent success of the AGFA men’s team who have recently reached the U18 College’s National Final at Blackburn Rovers Football Club and with our AGFA ladies also reaching the ECFA Knockout Cup semi-final, it’s easy to see why NSCG's Academy of Sport is Staffordshire’s top sporting college.”

He added: “Both the ECFA and ESFA competitions offer an incredible opportunity for these students to showcase their talents at a national and international level. We are all immensely proud of both Ethan and David’s achievements so far, we wish them the best of luck in their upcoming matches and we will be supporting them all the way.”

NSCG’s Academy of Sport is open to students who want to compete, coach, keep fit or simply have fun. There are a number of competitive programmes including; football, basketball, netball, athletics, rugby, volleyball and golf. The College was awarded West Midlands Sports College of the Year in 2012 and 2014 and was rated as "outstanding" for sports, leisure and recreation by Ofsted.