Stirling Winder probably wasn’t expecting to be playing FIFA 20 against Ben Pearson when he entered a national tournament representing PNECET in the online football game earlier in the lockdown period.
Such were his exploits in the virtual world, however, the 16-year-old – who is one of our PL Kicks participants at our Londridge session – was doing exactly after he finished third in the national tournament!
Stirling played as Preston North End in the online competition, which had 815 entrants nationwide with other community trust organisations involved, and he made it right to the very end of the knock-out competition.
Just missing out on the main prize, Stirling did brilliantly to finish third in the competition, and even defeated the second-place finisher, so arguably could have finished higher.
Following his success, he was challenged to an online game by Lilywhites midfielder Ben Pearson and given the momentum from his success in the tournament, it was perhaps no surprise that Stirling was victorious even over North End’s accomplished No.4!
Click on the video above to watch the reactions of both Stirling and Pearo from the game – although defeated, a highlight from Ben saw him scoring his only goal of the online game with the in-game equivalent of himself, and he was predictably pleased.
PNECET have a number of PL Kicks sessions in the Preston community, providing free football sessions in and around Preston for eight to 18-year-olds, which you can find out more about here.
The Kicks programme has continued during the lockdown period with a series of skills challenges on our social media channels. Follow the Community and Education Trust on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the links provided to try them yourself!