Multiple clubs scouted 12-year-old playmaker James Thomas when he attended our Birmingham event back in December 2019.

James attended our trials after his father bought him a space for his birthday.

With hopes of being noticed, James gave 100% at our trial and reaped the reward as Wolves, Walsall, Birmingham City, MK Dons and Birmingham City scouted him. He has since also been offered a trial with Coventry City.

Speaking with James’ father, he told us about his son’s football history, explaining: “James started playing for a local team when he was five or six-years-old and eventually trialled with, and later signing for Worcester City F.C.”

“Last season he was made captain of Worcester City but unfortunately the MJPL was disbanded so James joined Worcester Raiders and is again captain of the team.”

He added: “James is very much sort after locally, he’s a great player and can basically play any position on the pitch.”

After learning James had been scouted, his father explained what happened from there, explaining: “Wolves contacted us first and asked if James would be interested in trialling for them. We obviously agreed and he sent across all of the information.”

“We went to Wolves training ground and did a six week trial but there was a problem with the paperwork so things came to a halt.”

Although this seemed like a setback, James’ father explained: “After the trial with Wolves we were contacted by Matthew Baxter from Walsall who told us that he was very impressed with James and really wanted to get him in on trial with the club.”

“We attended the first trial with Walsall with plans to continue for three weeks, but unfortunately with the lockdown we were unable to continue.”

Because of the lockdown imposed on the UK, James and his father thought that the opportunities had come to an end. However, this was not the case. James’ father explained: “Now that everything has calmed down Matthew reached out to us again and invited James back to finish his trial with Walsall.”

“Additionally, Matthew has now moved to Coventry City and has also invited James to trial with them once he has finished with Walsall.” He added.

This was not the end of it though, Birmingham City have also been in contact and would like to organise a trial for James once their academy has opened back up again!

Talking with James himself about his trial with Wolves, he went into a little bit more detail about what it entailed: “With Wolves we’d always start the session with a warm up and then we’d go through different drills each week.”

“One week it would be things like one on ones testing how good we were defensively, what were we like going forward, other weeks they would focus on how skilful we were and get us to express ourselves freely.”

“I feel like I performed well during the time with Wolves, and I really enjoyed the experience.”

One thing that has particularly stuck with James is his time playing a match for Wolves, he explained: “One week we played a friendly against Crew Alexandra and I played as right-back. My main objective was to receive the ball and look or a pass. I made three assists from crossing the ball into the box.”

He continued: “I also did a Bolasie flick during the match and the oppositions manager was really impressed, he came up to me and said ‘fair play’.”

As a player who attended our events and scouted by so many clubs, we asked James what advice he had for players looking to get scouted. He told us: “I would tell players to show how well they can communicate on the pitch, be really loud. I would also say to express your skills, play your best and show you can be a team player.”

UK Football Trials would like to congratulate James and wish him the best of luck with his football.

We will continue to bring updates on James’ football moving forward.