Congratulations to ESPFA West Yorkshire student, Sam Brearley who earned his first team debut last night for Brighouse Town against Knaresborough in the first round of the West Riding County Cup.
This makes Brealey the 73rd ESPFA student to make a competitive first team debut. Brearley came off the bench in the second half with the score at 1-1 and the game went the full distance, going to penalties. Brighouse showed great character and won the shootout 5-4 securing their place in the hat for the second round of the cup.
His fellow #ESPFAWestYorkshire and Brighouse Town academy teammate, Logan Sheridan was also named on the bench for the game but didn't make it on to the pitch. The Brighouse Town manager, Vill Powell was planning on handing Logan his debut but due to an unfortunate red card and the match heading to penalties, he felt like his more senior players were needed. He said: "I would've got Logan on tonight, it was just a difficult one with the sending off, and once I knew it was going to penalties I needed really to keep Jack Boyle on there."
Powell also had nothing but praise for the Brearley and Sheridan. "It's brilliant to see, it's what we are about at Brighouse. Hopefully the lads from our academy and under 17s having that experience can kick them on"
To get in on the action and have the chance to follow in their footsteps sign up at www.espfa.co.uk/register.