Oxenhope man’s company sets up LA Galaxy soccer trials at Marley

1:08pm Thursday 3rd May 2007

KEIGHLEY will stage trials for young soccer hopefuls who fancy the chance of joining David Beckham at LA Galaxy.

Oxenhope man Wayne Priestley and his company Rancel are to give untapped football talent in this country a chance to travel to America and have trials with LA Galaxy.

Priestley is a family friend of young Guiseley AFC twins Ben and Tom Wilkinson who hit the headlines a couple of months ago when they flew out to Los Angeles for trials.

Priestley accompanied them and made contacts within LA Galaxy. He has now been asked to produce a squad of 14 players to take out to Los Angeles for two weeks. The players will be coached and viewed by LA staff over the two-week period and the chance is there for them to either be offered contracts with LA Galaxy, be offered scholarships to American universities or to be approached by other US teams.

The initial trip in July is not to be regarded as a one off as Priestley explained: " I have set up a company along with Gus Morrison from Rawdon specifically to organise trips to LA Galaxy, possibly three times a year, to enable Galaxy to look at some of the raw young talent we have in this country.

"We just felt that with the influx of foreign talent into the British game many of our youngsters are not getting an opportunity to show what they can do.

"This connection with Galaxy will allow us to send them 14 players two or three times a year for them to look over in a prolonged trial.

"We will be running trials at Marley in Keighley and will then select 14 players to travel out to America at the end of July.

"At the moment players must be prepared to pay their own way but we are actively seeking sponsorship and so the cost may well be significantly reduced.

"We envisage that without any sponsorship the two-week trip, including all fares and accommodation, will be £1,500 but we expect this to be significantly reduced, especially as we have a two-for-one offer on air tickets. Many big firms have shown an interest in sponsoring and we have to iron out the details with them.

"We will have our own kit and tracksuits with the help of Pendle in Ilkley and we are very grateful to Bradford Council for assisting us with the use of Marley.

"When the squad is selected we will play a charity game at Marley to promote the team but also to give something back to the community and our chosen charity is ASBHA.

The squad will play a star studded team being lined up by Harry Potter film star Matthew Lewis.

That will not be their only contact with the stars for LA Galaxy have told them that whilst in LA they will have the use of Rod Stewart's own football pitch for their training and will play a Hollywood stars team which may well include the likes of Vinnie Jones.

The open trials for 18-23 year-olds will be staged at Marley on Saturday and Sunday, June 2 and 3, from 10am to 6pm.

Any players interested in taking part must get an application form online from www.ranceluk.com.

There is obviously no great divide between Rangers fan Wayne and Celtic fan Gus as the company name Rancel is a derivative of the two clubs.

Morrison said: "Because of the influx of foreign talent into the British game many of our young players are being overlooked and pushed further and further down the line. We are not soccer coaches and we are not agents, we are just two football fans who want to see this young talent given a chance and our link with LA Galaxy is giving them just that chance."

Wayne added: "When Tom and Ben went to LA Galaxy they got just a 20-minute trial along with hundreds of others but this is different. Because of the links I have made with LA Galaxy they see this as a way for them to look at untapped British youngsters. We will spend two whole weeks out there and they have asked us to do that two or three times a year.

"Galaxy will chaperone us while we are there and they have told us that we will be involved in some way when they play Chelsea during our stay.

"There has been a lot of media interest over there and Sky and the BBC have shown interest here.

"LA Galaxy see it that we have talent over here and they want it to help raise the profile of soccer in the US. They are keen on this because they want our youngsters to help them generate interest among American kids and get them away from baseball, basketball and American football."

Morrison added: "We will be introducing young players to a country that wants to raise its profile in soccer while in this country talent is going to waste.

"There are a lot of good young players around and we don't want to see their talent wasted. We want to put pressure on clubs over here to look more closely at some of our young talent and maybe by them going to America it may make our clubs think about looking at their local players more closely.

A proud Scot, Morrison at one time managed a pub owned by Celtic legend Bobby Lennox.

Gus said: "When Celtic won the European Cup when Bobby was in the side all their players lived within a 30 mile radius of Glasgow. What we are trying to say to some of our local clubs, from UniBond level upwards, is that there is young talent on your doorstep if you are prepared to look."