A host of famous personalities will attend the opening of a school’s new £750,000 artificial pitch.

The new facility at St Mary’s School, Menston, will be opened by former England international and Football Association’s director of football development, Sir Trevor Brooking, on Monday, March 21.

He will be joined by Peanut Baines, Nick Hodgson and Simon Rix from the Kaiser Chiefs, actor Matthew Lewis, who played Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films, Yorkshire cricketers Joe Sayers and David Wigley and professional footballers Aiden White, Niall Canavan, Tom Taiwo, Luke Hendrie and Jordan Sinnott who all went to the school.

The new pitch is the culmination of more than a decade of campaigning and fundraising at the school and is also a boost to the wider sporting community including St Mary’s partner clubs of Guiseley Juniors FC, Menston Juniors FC and Burley Trojans FC.

The project at the sports college was part funded with the help of a £325,000 grant from the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity, which has supported about 8,000 community sports schemes to the tune of £945 million since 2000.

  • Read the full story in Thursday's T&A