Half A Million Viewers Tuned In For A Wolves Under 9's Five-A-Side Game

A five-a-side game featuring Wolverhampton Wanderers' Under 9's side drew over 500,000 viewers last Sunday.

The Wolves youngsters took on a visiting team from China, with parents in attendance for the game at the club's training ground.

But over half a million people, predominantly Chinese viewers, tuned in for the game after it was live streamed on Chinese social media site Weibo - giving the players on the pitch quite remarkable exposure at such a young age.

Image: SWNS

With more than 500,000 watching in the Far East, it meant incredibly, the game had more viewers watching than the first team's 2-0 win over Aston Villa at Molineux as Nuno Espirito Santo's side moved to the top of the table.

Image: PA

The derby clash was shown live on Sky Sports on Saturday evening. But the match between academy players a day later was far more popular, albeit with a different audience, and actually achieved higher figures than what Wolves' senior side experienced in their televised games last season.

As per the Daily Mail, the most people Wolves had watching was 405,000 for a game against eventual title winners Newcastle, and 372,000 for when they played against Villa.

Image: PA

Speaking about the arrangement whereby the team from China visited the Sir Jack Hayward training ground for a tour and game, Wolves Academy's head of coaching and development Marc Campbell said the following to the official Wolves website:

"We were delighted to welcome the young players and coaches to the academy.

"It was a trip organised by Global Image Sports and their links both with Thomas Cook Sports in China and another company called Xplore.

"The players are over here to gain experience and had done a fair bit of training elsewhere so it was nice to arrange the friendly five-a-side game against some of our players which took place in the Academy Arena."

"We also took the opportunity to show the travelling party around the facilities at Compton Park and they were impressed by what they saw here.

"All in all it was a very positive experience for everybody concerned and is just another of those relationships that can really help in promoting the work that we do here at Wolves Academy."

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Wolverhampton Wanderers, Football, Nuno Espirito Santo, Wolves, championship

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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