On a weekend of brightest blue sky and relentless sunshine, 86 youth teams from all over the South West made the trip to Erme Valley, home of Ivybridge Town FC, for a magnificent mini soccer tournament.

Organiser Paul Cocks, the club secretary and mastermind of the event, was thrilled with how everything panned out.

'The weather was just fantastic, and to be honest I think that's what has made the difference.

'We had 60-odd teams last year, and this year we had 86 entrants and we had to turn people away because we had reached our maximum capacity.'

With five teams from Bristol, others from Somerset, all four corners of Devon inluding Bideford, Torquay and Plymouth, and plenty of teams from Cornwall, including Hooe, Charlestown and Callington.

The event was a great day out for all the young players and their supporters, who thoroughly enjoyed lazing around on the grass and soaking up some long-awaited rays while creating a fantastic atmosphere for the youngsters.

Run over two days on July 21 and 22, the Saturday saw U7s to U10s categories compete, followed by U11s to U13s, who took to the pitches on Sunday.

Local representatives included Ivybridge and Manstow, and all of Ivy's teams bar the U11s and U13s made it through to at least the semi-finals or better, which is a superb achievement.

The age group winners were as follows: under 7s – Marine Academy; under 8s – Plymouth Trophyman; under 9s – Marine Academy; under 10s – Activate Youth; under 11s – Callington Colts; under 12s – Elm United; under 13s – Keyham Kolts.