School girl Rebecca is Queen of the kick-ups

Harrogate year five pupil Rebecca Hugill went along to her first football training session at FDS Harrogate, deciding to give it a go after spending hours watching her brother train at the soccer school.

At FDS Harrogate one of the many aspects that the coaches work on is first touch and they often use kick-ups (keepy uppies) to make progress in this area.

Rebecca, who has autism and suppresses the vision in her left eye, began her first class trying to do one kick-up and catch, as most of the new starters do.

While she was waiting for her brother to play in a match, she saw a stage and took her ball and began practising her kick-ups – 1,420 kick ups later, quite a crowd had gathered and she received a standing ovation.

Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver has invited her to perform a demonstration of her skills on the pitch at Harrogate Town on Saturday, April 30.