Rebekah Bass was the surprise guest at an all-girls football tournament held in partnership with the Leeds United Foundation Premier League Primary Stars team recently.

The Leeds United Women's player was on hand at Middleton Leisure Centre, where a number of local school’s female football teams were participating in a football tournament hosted by coaches from the club’s official charity along with the Schools Sports Partnership.

The young students taking part were all vying for a spot in the Premier League National Competition, with the opportunity to play at Thorp Arch training ground before the winning teams represent Leeds United at the final set to take place at none-other-than Elland Road in June later this year.

During the visit, Bassy spent time meeting each team in attendance and having photos with them all, whilst also answering questions from the excited youngsters, offering words of advice for those who want to pursue becoming a footballer.

The full-back spoke to LUTV during her time at the local tournament, and she said: “It’s great to come down and see loads of young girls playing in this football tournament and it’s especially really inspiring that they’ve got all of these teams to play for now, with a lot of the girls also saying that they play for club’s outside of school as well.

“One of the girls asked me who my role model was growing up, and I maybe had one or two female role models to look up to and it’s great that these girls have hundreds, especially following the Euros, so that’s brilliant.

“It’s nice for us guys from the women’s team to come down and see these kind of events because like I’ve said when I was younger this never really happened, so to see these guys with that ambition to play for a women’s team and hopefully do it as a career is absolutely brilliant, and it’s great to be involved, if we can help inspire them further then that’s an added bonus.”

The Premier League Primary Stars initiative is delivered across the country within thousands of schools, and it enables coaches to use the appeal of the Premier League and professional football clubs to support and engage pupils in the classroom, on the playground and on the sports field.

If you would like any more information around the Premier League National Tournament or the Premier League Primary Stars programme, please contact Kelly.Jackson-Powell@leedsunited.com.