It's going to be colourful, as well as interesting, when over the weekend of July 23rd and 24th at Roots Hall, Ricky Duncan's Southend United Under-18 side will face the Premiership academy youth team of Wolverhampton Wanderers on the Saturday, with the winners playing in the Final either Norwich City or Leicester City the following day along with a third/fourth play-off.
It's been known as the Toomey Cup in the past with Everton and West Ham as previous winners as the young Shrimpers have even matched and beaten the mighty Arsenal Under-18's.
Now known as the Cars4All Trophy, the dealer is based in London Road, Westcliff, fans who buy a ticket for the Ipswich town friendly on Friday evening will be able to attend both of the days four games for free, just remember to retain your ticket stub!
If you plan to turn up for the tournamenet alone a two-day ticket is £10 for Adults, £6 for Concessions, and £2 for Children.
Youth team boss Ricky Duncan certainly can't wait!
He told www.echo-news.co.uk: “It’s the third year we’ve done this now and it’s great that we’ve attracted three excellent teams again. Wolves and Norwich are both Premier League sides with academy set ups and Leicester are also very strong, so it will be another excellent weekend. I think it shows that we have a good reputation and people know we have a good youth system here. We’ve worked hard for that to happen and teams have been ringing up asking to take part in our tournament. It’s brilliant and we’re looking forward to what will be two tough tests.”
As they are facing Wolves on the first day one player the faithful will see is former talented young defender Dominic Iorfa.
He decided to apply his trade at Molineux in the summer and, of course, Ricky was upset to see him go but perfectly understood why he made the decision.
Duncan explained: “We never like to sell our players and I’d like to stress that point to our supporters. We would much rather the player progressed to reach our first team, like Kane Ferdinand and Harry Crawford have done. But when something comes up that’s good for the lad and the club it’s difficult to stand in his way.”
Cars4All Trophy Schedule
Saturday, July 23rd -
Norwich City v Leicester City - 11.30
Southend United v Wolverhampton Wanderers - 15.00
Sunday, July 24th -
Losers of the two games play a third/fourth play-off - 11.30 (TBC)
Winners face each other in the Final - 15.00 (TBC)