City fan Aaliyah’s Wembley double

Reporter: Karen Doherty
Date published: 15 March 2012


Player scores with mascot honour
FOOTBALL-MAD Aaliyah Morton has represented both club and country at Wembley — at the age of only nine.

She has had the honour of twice stepping out onto the hallowed turf in front of a capacity crowd as a mascot.

The Manchester City season ticket holder accompanied Blues midfielder David Silva on to the pitch ahead of the Community Shield Final against Manchester United.

She then escorted Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard for last month’s England friendly against Holland.

Sports-mad Aaliyah, from Royton, plays for Chadderton FC Juniors under-10s girls team in the North Manchester Girls League.

She also plays netball, dodgeball and is on the athletics team at St Paul’s Primary School, Royton.

Mum Joanne Morton, of Maple Wood Close, said: “She has always been a season ticket holder and as soon as she was old enough she started playing.”

Both the City and England matches ended in 3-2 defeats and Joanne added: “She was not the luckiest of mascots but she loved it. I expected her to be quite nervous but it didn’t faze her at all.”