Last updated at 17:03, Thursday, 14 March 2013

WELCOME to the VJS Arena.

BRICKED UP Pupils from the upper school football team at Victoria Junior School in Barrow have created a football stadium from Lego bricks. Members of the team from Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6, are pictured with their creation HARRY ATKINSON REF: 50045628B001

It may not hold 70,000 spectators or have under-soil heating, but this super stadium is certainly the Theatre of Dreams as far as the youngsters behind it are concerned.

The football team at Victoria Junior School created the ground using standard Lego blocks.

The project started one afternoon when the weather was too poor to practise football after school.

One session gave nowhere near enough time to finish. But once the lads from years four, five and six had got started on the task, they were determined to see it through to completion.

They used wet play times to construct the pint-sized pitch and surrounding stands and even added some authentic finishing touches, such as a television camera in the corner.

Craig Rutherford, behaviour support and PE teacher, said: “We talked about how we could build the closest thing to a stadium as we could using Lego and I had no input into that. That was all down to the (children).

“They split into groups and each one was in charge of a stand.

“The school is very big on teaching resilience and if children feel like something is too big or too hard, they shouldn't give up.

“The stands kept falling down and it wasn't strong enough, so they had to re-think how they were going to put it all together and came up with something that worked.”

Lego whiz-kid Sean Edgley, nine, of year five, was the brains behind the structural redesign which ensured the stadium was strong enough to stand upright. Sean, who subscribes to the Lego magazine, said: “Two stands kept falling down, so I strengthened them up.

“I had to kind of start again but it worked in the end.”

First published at 16:35, Thursday, 14 March 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk