A north-east football club has formed a link with an African school team – who are now proudly donning the Deeside squad’s colours.
The Banchory Boys under-14s side have donated their old strips to the youngsters at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church school in the town of Ve Koloenu, in the Volta region of Ghana.
The Ghanan team includes orphans from the town’s Eugemot Orphanage.
The Banchory Boys also donated footballs, trainers and other kit to the team – and harbour hopes of one day meeting their counterparts.
The Ve Koloenu school caters for 300 students aged between eight to 12, but struggles to pay for teachers and has no funds set aside for sports kits.
The donations were made possible by Venture Force, an adventure and expedition organisation who have been carrying out community work in the Volta region of Ghana since 2010.
Craig Duncanson, manager of the Banchory team, said: “The man that runs Venture Force, Tom Tuckwood, I used to work with him years ago and just through Facebook he’d been putting things up about his expeditions to Africa.
“He takes students over there to do volunteer work and I got back in touch. He mentioned the kids over in Ghana needed sports items, and the penny dropped with me. I thought ‘we have got an old kit’.
“They had no sports kit, they have hardly enough money.”
The father-of-three asked all his players to start digging out old kits which they no longer needed, before sending the items onto Venture Force, who then shipped them to Ghana.
Mr Duncanson, 44, of Banchory, said: “I think they are still going to keep their own identity. Ideally we’d like to meet them some way, some how.
“I was saying to my boys one day these guys might be playing for Real Madrid, a lot of good footballers come out of Africa.”
Other items sent to the pupils include old football strips from Hill of Banchory Primary School and Banchory Boys training jackets.
The squad play in the Aberdeen District B-League, and anyone keen to donate football kit to the children of Ve Koloenu should contact Craigduncanson@aol.com
The team is also looking to play an international football tournament in Barcelona next year and are seeking sponsors.