SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD goalkeeper Ellie Beesley has been selected to play for the England Colleges’ football team.

The former Treviglas Academy pupil, who sat her GCSEs last year, is set to make her debut in the Colleges’ friendly against Bristol City U21s at Milton Keynes today.

She will then take part in a two-day training camp at St George’s Park, before a further match against the Army in January, and then a tour of Italy in February. Ellie, who only turned 16 in June, moved to the Midlands to pursue her football dream after impressing in pre-season trials for West Bromwich Albion Ladies.

They asked her to come and join them, and she is now at Sandwell College studying sports coaching and playing as part of the WBA Foundation. 

It has meant leaving the family home in Newquay to live with her grandparents in Birmingham, but parents Lucie and Nathan could not be more proud of her.

“She eats, drinks and sleeps football and this is a reward for all her hard work,” said Lucie of her Newquay born-and-bred daughter who was coached through the Cornwall FA system and had spent two to three years at the FA Women’s High Performance Goalkeeping Centre at Plymouth Marjon University. 

Lucie said: “We would like to thank Goalkeeping South West coach Jason Haswell (lead coach at the Goalkeeping Centre), who has been her coach for several years, for all his hard work with Ellie, and also Dan Pettit, of the No Worries Newquay company, who is sponsoring her goalkeeping gloves while she is with the England Colleges’ team.”

Ellie used to play for the Charlestown Youth team, and was educated at Treviglas, where Nichola Brierley was her PE teacher in school and coaches their girls’ football teams. 

Headteacher James Rogers said: “We are really proud of Ellie’s achievements.”