VETERAN players from two all-conquering Notts youth teams of the past are meeting for their final reunion.

More than 50 years ago, Bentinck Methodist Youth Club were winners of the All Britain Methodist Cup, while East Kirkby MW Juniors took the Mansfield Youth League title four times in a row — and later added a fifth.

And some of the players from those two Kirkby-in-Ashfield teams went on to make the grade at professional level, including Dick Edwards (Notts County, Aston Villa, Mansfield and Torquay), Mike Stringfellow (Mansfield and Leicester City), Stuart Boam (Mansfield and Middlesbrough), Tony Knapp (Leicester City, Southampton and Tranmere), and Paul Richardson (Forest).

The reunion is being held at East Kirkby Welfare on April 15 and the man they will be honouring is local football stalwart Eric Eason, 79, who managed both teams.

He will be coming back from his Derbyshire home to his old Kirkby stamping ground to meet some of his proteges – and he hopes more ex-players will turn up on the night.

Eason said: "I am 79 years young so it is the right time to call for old players and friends to unite for a final reunion.

"No fewer than 16 players signed professional with Football League clubs from Bentinck and East Kirkby.

"Several more just missed out," he said.

Eason has recently made contact with Tony Knapp, still coaching in Scandinavia at the age of 73, for the first time in more than 40 years.

Knapp paid this tribute to his former mentor: "Having been told by Forest that I wasn't good enough, Eric Eason and Bentinck Methodists came into my life at exactly the right time."

Thanks to Eason's faith in him, Knapp bounced back to have a successful career before becoming an international coach.

Eason was in at the start of football at Bentinck Methodist, a tin tabernacle where the youth club organised activities to support regular attendance at evening worship every Sunday.

During those evenings the pianist was Mrs Stringfellow, whose son Mike would later become a Mansfield Town and Leicester City hero.

The football team started in 1949, in green shirts bought after a raffle, and lost its first match to New Houghton Villa 14-0.

Eason, with helpers Sam Walker and Gordon Toon, had the regular job of wheeling two sacks of sawdust up the steep Church Hill from Bentinck pit to mark the pitch.

The club became a Leicester City nursery club as Tony Knapp, Phil Graney and Roland "Sam" Allsebrook all signed with the Foxes. Harry Noon (Notts County) was another to make the grade.

Eason's switch from Bentinck to East Kirkby came in the mid-1950s and they became one of the district's top youth clubs.

For more information about the reunion, call Eric Eason on 01246 854 342.