9-20 August

The highlight of this year's Summer Project has to be the surprise appearance of football legend Ashley Cole at a training session run to improve football skills. At the end of a highly enjoyable day the twelve children attending the course were amazed by the unannounced appearance of the England midfielder and even more delighted when he happily signed everything they put before him including shoes, shirts, photos and slips of paper!

"It was great" said Billie Manzi who had her photo taken with the Chelsea and England star. "This kind of thing really inspires the children to achieve" said Mark Wood, SYCT's Principal Youth Worker.

The England team may have turned in a disappointing performance at this year's World Cup in South Africa but two SYCT girls recently helped their English team to a glorious victory in winning the 2010 Rosebowl Cup.

Sophie Manzi and Hannah Baptiste triumphed in the four nations under-16s football tournament for young women which takes place every August in Bangor, Northern Ireland. The event is organised by Clubs for Young People, a network of over 3,000 voluntary youth clubs, groups and projects across the UK. As well as giving young women a unique opportunity to play competitive football against other young teams the tournament also encourages them to meet new challenges and find out about the lives of young people from other communities.

Following rigorous trials in Bristol the two girls were selected to represent the full England team and went on to take part in further training sessions before the start of the tournament. In a competition which saw a very high standard of football throughout, England eventually triumphed to beat Scotland 4-1, Northern Ireland 6-0 and Wales 2-0, with Hannah scoring one of the goals against Scotland and the winner against Wales.