Orpington College Students from the Charlton Athletic youth team have reached the 5th round of the FA Youth Cup and will have a chance to play at the theatre of dreams, Manchester United's ground, Old Trafford. Many of the Charlton youth players are currently studying part time at Orpington College in a partnership that has been running for a number of years. The young players take one and a half days a week out of their busy training schedule to study a range of courses at the College. The majority of the players are studying Sports related courses such as BTEC, First Diploma and National Diploma in Sport, whilst a handful have chosen other directions such as Business.
Three players, Lawrie Wilson, John Kurrant and Mads Nielsoren are currently studying AS Business Studies at Orpington and will be involved at the tie with Manchester United in February. Lawrie Wilson, also studying A Level Spanish, has been with Charlton for 7 years. “It’s been good for us to carry on with our academic studies while developing our football careers, you never know what’s going to happen, but now we are focused on playing for Charlton and hopefully progressing to the next round of the cup”, he said.
 | | The team after a game |
The youth players are given a two year contract with Charlton at the age of 16 and this can then be renewed as a professional contract at 18. John and Mads are in their 1st year of the youth contract and Lawrie is in his second year. John is also studying English Literature and Mads is also studying Maths. Charlton reached the semi final of the FA youth cup two seasons ago, but were knocked out by Manchester United. Charlton will advance into the last eight of the FA Youth Cup if they can get past Manchester United on 7th February. | 
