Former players from Bradford City and Bradford Park Avenue will clash in a charity football match to raise money to send an autistic youngster on a pioneering treatment programme.

Big names are expected to take to the pitch for the game, which is being supported by the Telegraph & Argus.

It kicks-off at 3pm at Horsfall Stadium, Cemetery Road, Bradford, on Sunday, September 17. Entry is £3 for adults and £1 for concessions.

It is hoped to attract a crowd of 1,500 to boost the Jude Barker Appeal, which is close to achieving its £10,000 target needed to send the three-and-a-half-year-old to America for a week of radical treatment in April 2008.

Jude has severe autism and cannot talk or communicate and his mental development is already being surpassed by his 16-month-old brother Theo.

The boys' mum, 24-year-old Jemma Barker, of Clayton Road, Great Horton, first told the T&A in March how she was attempting to raise the money to send Jude to the Son-Rise Options Institute in Massachusetts, with the aim of reversing some of the effects of autism through tailored sessions and sensory therapy.

Since then the appeal has taken off and the fund now stands at more than £7,000.

Mick Couzens, community development worker for Bradford Park Avenue, said: "I read about Jude in the T&A and came up with the idea of organising a charity football match. Jude is a fantastic and worthy cause."

Jemma said she was overwhelmed with the response from Mick and the wider Bradford community. "Jude is a real character and one on his own and he has touched so many people's hearts and I can't thank them enough.

"Jude is a prime candidate for this treatment because he is still young. I hope it will encourage him to start speaking and develop in everything he does. He is basically a one-year-old in a nearly four-year-old's body.

"At the moment Jude attends Netherlands Avenue School where he gets one-to-one attention, but it closes next year and we don't know what is going to happen. I just thank God we have the Son-Rise Institute to look forward to."

e-mail: claire.lomax@bradford.newsquest.co.uk