Angus youngsters got a chance to put their football skills on show in the build up to the Champions League final.
The culmination of Europe’s premier club football tournament will draw to a close at Wembley this weekend but coaches and staff from Uefa were in the county at Forfar’s Station Park to host a Grassroots Day for primary three and four pupils from local schools.
The event formed part of a Europe-wide initiative aimed at getting youngsters involved in sport and educating them in the benefits of playing football at a young age.
Angus children joined pupils in towns and cities across the continent who took part in an afternoon of four-a-side games as part of the event.
The games featured teams comprising boys and girls, which echoed Uefa’s ethos of the initiative that football should be open to all.
A spokesman for the organisation said: “Uefa’s fourth Grassroots Day celebrates the joy of football and that the game is open to everyone.
“An annual undertaking, Uefa Grassroots Day was created by European football’s governing body to emphasise its commitment to the sport’s foundations. A regular fixture on the Wednesday before the Uefa Champions League final, it relays the important message that elite football cannot flourish without healthy grassroots and that all of today’s superstars began playing at grassroots level.
“It also underlines the unstinting efforts and essential contribution of thousands of volunteers. This work was recognised at the UEFA Grassroots Workshop in the Norwegian capital last month, where a group of deserving people were honoured with this season’s Uefa Grassroots Day Awards.”
The afternoon was a “non-scoring event”, which eliminated the competitive element but underlined the inclusive approach behind the Grassroots project.