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Marathon Mal helps starlet

25/ 7/2007

MACCLESFIELD marathon man Mal Maginn was proud to be host to one of Europe's budding young soccer talents.

Sixteen-year-old Olya Cernigovskaja has, for the past two seasons, been adjudged the best player in her age group in Latvia and is the Latvian Under-16 team captain.

Mal has run many marathons all over the world to raise money for Hope for Children.

He is also the secretary of Lancashire and Cheshire League club Burnage Metro and took Olya down to enjoy a training session.

Mal played for the club well into his 60s and still turns out in emergencies. In the last three years he has raised over £2,000 for the charity.

Mal explained: "One of the cases the charity helped with was Olya. She was found wandering the streets of Riga with her brother after being abandoned by her mother and was taken into care by Hope for Children.

"She was born in Riga but her family originally came from northern Siberia, where her relatives still live and where her dad had a drink problem and died tragically in a fall.

"She began playing soccer in 2003 and has won over 20 medals in leagues and tournaments.

"The charity arranged her trip to England and I became involved in setting it up with training sessions at Everton and Man City Ladies as well as Burnage Metro. From what I have seen she has great technical ability at soccer and more than held her own with the professional club's ladies.

"She has also enjoyed meeting Oli Hayes, from Macclesfield, who is gaining a great deal of interest from clubs for his quite incredible skills with a ball.

"Olya's English is very limited but she said that she had really enjoyed her trip to the North West and was very pleased with the warm welcome she was given."