Northumbria University students Greg Purvis and Harry Simpson have been selected to represent the Northern Universities regional side against the South after successful trials.
“We knew Greg’s ability as he had been playing in my men’s second team,” said BUCS team head coach Derek Forrest.
“As of late he has taken over the TN goalkeeping position and has been fantastic. His natural talent will always come through if he works hard.
“Likewise I remember meeting Harry [Simpson] on the first day of trials and you could see he could play football.
“He went to play NORTH intramural football and we eventually stepped him up into the squad.
“He had a great season with the seconds and now he is a men’s first team player so it is a great story.”
Former Sunderland Academy goalkeeper Purvis and midfielder Simpson were present in the matchday squad during Team Northumbria’s 3-1 win against Ashington on the weekend - goals from Josh Bynoe, Andrei Ardelean and Ben Dibb-Fuller cementing all three points at Coach Lane.
“We are pleased with the result and lots of parts of the performance,” said Forest, overseeing the Northern League squad in the absence of head coach Colin Stromsoy.
“We have scored three and didn’t give goals away but Ashington missed a lot of chances and sometimes that’s the difference.
“It’s a positive that we have won two games in a row after the win on Wednesday against Stirling University.”
TN now sit a comfortable 16 points clear of the relegation places and assistant manager Derek Forrest is confident of reaching the team’s points target set out at the start of the season.
“Like most managers do in football, we have talked about the 40-point barrier,” admitted Forrest.
“We had a bit of a team meeting at the start of the season and the players thought we could achieve around 10th in the league and we would absolutely agree with that.
“Hopefully, with everything going to plan things will be looking upwards.”
Next on the agenda for TN is Washington, who reside in the relegation zone of Northern League Division One. The last time the two sides met ‘The Mechanics’ came out on top, winning 3-1 during a period of bad form for TN.
Washington, who are captained by former Premier League player Pascal Chimbonda, have themselves endured a recent run of poor results, picking up one point from a possible 15 in their last five games - conceding 19 goals in the process.
“We have a couple of games in hand over the teams around us and it’s really important that we follow up by winning the game against Washington and capitalise on those games in hand,” added Forrest.
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