Confident Wild out to end ‘hoodoo’ at Amputee World Cup

Photo: PICTURES by ANTHONY MILLER.

GUNNING FOR GLORY: Great Britain amputee coach Pete Wild (front, left) and player Dave Tweed are pictured with Year Six on a visit to St Joseph’s RC Primary School.

Football: 

ROYTON-based Pete Wild is gunning for glory at the Amputee Football World Cup tournament in Mexico a week from now.

A double Greater Manchester Sports Award winner and Oldham Athletic youth team and academy coach, Wild is also head coach of the Great Britain amputee football team and recently dropped in at St Joseph’s RC Primary School in Shaw.

With five staff and an 11-strong playing squad, Team GB fly to Cancun on Wednesday, with the 23-nation, two-week long tournament starting on November 30.

Great Britain are in Group ‘F’, alongside Ghana and Angola, and Wild is quietly confident his second World Cup will produce an improvement on the fifth-place finish Great Britain achieved in Russia in 2012.

Wild, who is now in his third year in the GB role, said: “The draw for the group stage has been quite favourable, to be honest. A top four finish wouldn’t be a disappointment, but we’ll be going there determined to win the World Cup.

“I believe we’ve got a good chance this time. It’s a realistic hope to think that we’re capable of winning it.”

It has been a quarter-of-a-century since Great Britain won the World Cup, however, and reigning champions Uzbekistan, Russia and Turkey will undoubtedly be the teams to beat in Mexico.