FOOTBALL: Mark's big day at Wembley (From This Is Wiltshire)

A FEW swipes of the thumb was all it took for Westbury footballer Mark Young to earn himself a dream date at the home of English football next week.

The 23-year-old, who plays for Westbury United, chanced his luck by entering the Vauxhall Big Pitch competition and was jumping for joy on Tuesday as he received confirmation that he was one of 22 hopefuls picked to run out at Wembley alongside a host of celebrity guests next Wednesday.

And Westbury is no stranger to producing winners for the national competition as Young will play alongside fellow winner Scott Howse, who also lives in the town, while his Westbury United teammate Matt Mead won the competition and found the net at Wembley last year.

The Big Pitch winners will also train at the state-of-the-art St George’s Park complex next Tuesday before staying the night in the England team hotel and travelling to London on the England team coach.

“It still hasn’t sunk in because it really is a dream come true,” said Young, who works as a builder.

“All you had to do was re-tweet a message from Vauxhall to enter so I did that on my phone and when I was on my way to work on Tuesday I heard my phone beep but couldn’t check it because I had no internet signal.

“I had to ask my boss if I could rush home from work and when I did check, I had a message saying I’d been picked – I was ecstatic.

“We’re allowed to bring 10 people to the game so a few mates, my dad and a few of my brothers will be coming and we also all get tickets to England’s game against Ireland (on May 29).

“Having Scott, who lives in Westbury and is the same age as me, going too is amazing and I’ll have to try and score two or three goals so that I can get one over on Matt.

“I was lucky enough to get tickets for the England v Brazil game (on February 6) and when I was sat up there, I never thought that I’d get the chance to play on that pitch.”