An eight-year-old boy has raised over £375 to help his football team pay for essential kit and equipment.

Cooper Bradley who attends St Osmond’s and Andrew’s RC Primary School, has been raising money for the U9 Blacks team at Breightmet United, which he plays for, by completing a sponsored challenge to cycle 68 miles by the end of July.

He has played for the team since the end of last year.

Cooper says he has found the challenge “easy, but challenging” so far, and is looking forward to completing his target distance.

“My favourite subject at school is PE, where I like to play football and rounders,” he said, adding that he wants to become a footballer when he grows up.

Natalie Allen, his mum, said: "The under-9s team were looking to buy tracksuits for their winter-kit, but we needed the money to fundraise it. I was chatting to Cooper about how we could raise the money and Cooper suggested that he could do a bike-ride.

“He’s always been a non-serious bike-rider, usually just going out with his sister or when we go out for a walk, but he’s taking the challenge very seriously.”

Natalie describes how Cooper came to his target distance of 68 miles.

She said: "We looked at the distance between his team, Breightmet United and Bolton Wanderers, as he’s a strong Wanderers fan, which is 6.8 miles.

"Then we multiplied that by ten!”

Cooper said that his favourite Wanderers player is Paris Maghoma.

So far, he has ridden 19.2 miles of his target in just five days, completing a ten mile long ride last Saturday which involved riding 25 laps of the Bolton Wanderers FC Toughsheet Community Stadium. Smashing his initial fundraising target of £150, he has currently raised over £375.