TWO players from Dudley-based Hartshill Strollers Walking Football Club have been chosen to represent England.

Striker John Cooper has been picked for the over-60 squad and goalkeeper Pete Gibbons for the over-50s.

The double call-up is a remarkable achievement for the club which was formed less than four years ago.

Cooper and Gibbons have made it through to their respective 21-man squads after trials involving more than 250 hopefuls from up and down the country.

Both now have their sights set on the first European Cup next year – and the inaugural World Cup in 2020.

The venues and dates of both tournaments have yet to be announced.

Cooper, a 62-year-old commissioning engineer from Wolverhampton, is one of the country’s leading club goalscorers, having once netted 14 times in a single tournament.

Key account manager Gibbons, aged 55, also from Wolverhampton, is regarded as one of the best shot-stoppers in walking football - and won his England place despite having played in the trials with a broken finger.

Cooper, who joined Hartshill Strollers in 2015, said: “I am very proud and excited at my England selection.

“I just can’t wait to pull on that shirt.”

He hopes to be making his international debut against Wales in the coming months.

Gibbons, who joined Strollers in 2016, said: “I am truly honoured.

“I gave up playing works league football 30 years ago – and now I have been selected for England.”

The opponents for Gibbons’ international debut have yet to be fixed.

The launch of an England squad set-up – and others in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - is a significant milestone in the development of walking football, one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK.

More than 1,000 clubs are now affiliated to the Walking Football Association (WFA) in England alone, with around another 250 in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It is thought that more than 30,000 men and women – mostly over the age of 50 – are regularly playing the sport at a competitive level.

Many former top-level professional players are now taking up the game, including Alan Kennedy, ex-Liverpool and England.

Last year, the Birmingham County FA set up a league for clubs in the West Midlands area to cope with the upsurge in the game.

Hartshill Strollers, who play at Summerhill School, Kingswinford, were founded in August 2014.

At the club’s first session at The Dell Stadium in Pensnett, Dudley, just four players turned up. Now, the club has a membership of more than 70 – aged from 50 to 85.

In 2016, Hartshill Strollers won the WFA Over 60s National Tournament – the sports equivalent of the FA Cup.

The underdogs’ victory over the country’s top clubs has been compared with lowly Wimbledon beating high-flying Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup – and second-tier Sunderland’s 1973 triumph against then-mighty Leeds United.

Mark Grazier, founder and chairman of Hartshill Strollers, said: “We have come a very long way in less than four years.

“To have two members picked for England is an enormous personal honour for them, but also for the club, for Dudley, the West Midlands – and for walking football.

“I am a very proud man.”