The North Wilts and District Youth and Minor League hosted their bi-annual mini-soccer festival of football at the home of Swindon Town.

The event gives the Under 7 and Under 8 teams of the league an opportunity to play on the County Ground pitch. As 2014 is a World Cup year the event used this as their theme and each team were allocated one of the nations that will be represented that this year’s show piece in Brazil.

The doors opened, the teams flooded in and the children collected their adopted nation’s flags with a sense of excitement having been given the likes of England, Spain and Argentina.

The festival is opened with every team making their way from the stands with their flags held high on to the pitch. The youngsters took up positions around the centre circle, waving their flags with the World Cup theme song playing before balloons were released.

Each team were guaranteed a total of 36 minutes of football and due to shortage of entrants the true spirit of the event is shown as players for various teams are brought together to play in these ‘spare’ games.

The day was ended with medals being presented to all players medals, while two teams epitomised sportsmanship were Purton Youth in the Under 7’s category and Shrivenham and Watchfield in the Under 8’s category.

The teams: Brazil (Lydiard), Croatia, Mexico (Greenmeadow), Cameroon (Highworth); Spain (Supermarine), Netherlands (Ramsbury), Chile (Ferndale Rodbourne), Australia (Purton); Columbia (Marlborough), Greece (Greenmeadow), Ivory Coast, Japan (Pewsey Vale); Uruguay (Shaw), Costa Rica (Hungerford), England (Purton), Italy (Robins); Switzerland (Robins), Ecuador (Lydiard Youth), France (Ferndale Rodbourne), Honduras (Shrivenham & Watchfield); Argentina (Lydiard Youth), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Wroughton), Iran (Shaw), Nigeria (Stratton Youth); Germany (Supermarine), Portugal (Wanborough), Ghana (Wroughton), USA (Lambourn); Belgium (Shaw), Algeria (Marlborough), Russia (Hungerford), South Korea (Highworth).