ALMOST 200 children from local schools entered into the spirit of Russia 2018 as Chester FC Community Trust hosted a Premier League Primary Stars Mini World Cup.

The event for boys and girls in Years 3 and 4 took place at Goals Soccer Centre with 24 teams each representing a different nation from the FIFA World Cup.

Schools were encouraged to dress in the country's colours and create flags and banners with a prize for the best dressed school.

There were separate competitions for boys and girls teams with both proving to be extremely competitive.

The winning school in the boys' competition was Waverton Primary School, representing Portugal, while Cherry Grove Primary School, representing Japan, took the trophy in the girls' competition.

Guilden Sutton Primary School performed exceptionally well on the day to finish as runners-up in both competitions with the boys representing Panama and the girls representing Sweden.

St Martin's Academy won the Best Dressed School prize for their creative representation of Costa Rica and Spain.

Jim Green, chief executive of Chester FC Community Trust, said: "The 2018 World Cup has captured the imagination and the children did a great job of representing their schools and respective countries.

"We are always so impressed at the quality of football in these tournaments and it is was wonderful to see so many boys and girls having fun playing the game and demonstrating important values such as teamwork, respect and fair play."