Garath McCleary surprised a local football club by turning up to a training session after helping in a campaign to ensure council pitches were maintained properly.

The League One footballer, who currently plays for Wycombe Wanderers, was brought up in Blackbird Leys and on Tuesday (July 11) he turned up unannounced to the area’s under-13 girls' team.

This comes as the professional footballer backed calls from this newspaper to make sure parks are properly mowed by Oxford City Council after noticing the problem whilst back home visiting his mum.

After being in touch with the club on social media about the progress of the cutting of the pitches, the former Premier League player said he would come along to one of the girl’s training sessions.

Chris Smith, Blackbird Leys U13s manager, said: “He said he was going to pop down but he didn’t say when so when he walked across it was nice to see.

“I introduced the girls to him, he said no worries about helping out. He didn’t want publicity but he just wanted to help out his local area. All the girls said thank you to him.

“He stayed and watched the whole session in the rain for an hour. It was nice to see he enjoyed watching grassroots football, it was refreshing.”

He admitted that Mr McCleary’s actions have helped the club save vital money the club would have had to spend on alternative facilities.

Mr Smith said: “Garath raised the points and he has saved the club a lot of money.

“For a non-profit organisation in today’s climate, you are talking a lot of money.

“It goes to show what someone, like Garath, can do. It is hard to explain unless you are involved in youth football.

“To think about the awareness it is raising for these girls and the club in general. If it gets one more child through the door and off the streets it’s a success.

“As I explained to Garath, you don’t understand how much his actions, which are minute for him, might have helped someone and helped us financially.

“To turn up and give an hour of his time was above and beyond.”

Barrie Evan, committee member at the club, said: “The pitch has been cut now. We have started training on it now.

“We spend most of our money during the winter period, in the summer we lack funding so we use the council’s football pitches but if they aren’t cut we are limited to where we can train.

“We are in talks to get in regularly cut. We can only wait and see. It’s frustrating for our kids. Why it took someone famous and a footballer for it to be a spread story I’m not sure, but it has helped.”

The 36-year-old footballer admitted he wouldn’t have had the career he had if it wasn’t for council pitches on the Blackbird Leys estate.

He said: “I used to go there to play football and if resources like that weren’t available I wouldn’t be in the position I am in now.

“For me personally I don’t think I would be in the position I am in if those parks weren’t available.”