Back in February 2018, Derby County scouted Keilen Robinson, and the 13-year-old defender went on to sign for the Championship club.

Since then, he has been selected to trial in August for a spot in the England under 15’s squad.

Talking to Keilen, he explained: “Before your event, I was just playing grassroots Sunday league for my local club.”

“A couple of days after your trial, Derby and MK Dons contacted me and said they wanted to have a look at me with Derby inviting me to play in a shadow match. I played in the match and I was then offered a six week trial.”

Performing well throughout his six-week trial, Derby Count opted to offer Keilen a two-year contract, which has since lead to him being on the radar of his national team.

We asked Keilen for more information on how he found out England were interested in him, which he explained: “We got an email and phone call a couple of weeks ago saying that I’ve been put on stand-by by England. Then a couple of days ago they rang back and said that I’m going on a trial with them in around four weeks.”

Over the moon with this news, Keilen’s dad Matthew further explained: “It’s a four day event, Thursday to Sunday, drop them off at 12 on the Thursday and pick him up around half past five on the Sunday.”

“Keilen still puts in 100% every game, his work rate’s great and he does his job.”

“We’re made up, we’re so proud. It was totally out of the blue and unexpected, you don’t even know these people are watching but, obviously they were.” He added.

When asked what his thoughts were on our event and the opportunity it provided players, Matthew said: “For Keilen personally it was brilliant, it was well run, there were plenty of scouts and everything seemed organised.”

“We were told by others that Keilen was good at what he did but nothing seemed to be happening. So I thought I’d go and get someone else’s perspective on whether he was good enough, and 15 months down the line here we are. It all panned out in a way.”

Everyone at UK Football Trials would like to congratulate Keilen and hope he can continue his amazing journey and officially be selected to represent his country.