SOCCER kits from across the UK will be winging their way to Africa – all thanks to a Huddersfield teenager.

Gemma Rishton is hoping to equip poor children in South Africa with football gear so they can enjoy the world’s best-loved game.

Now she is appealing for help to get it there.

Gemma, 18, of Holmfirth, and her club Westend FC launched the Giyani Appeal earlier this year – urging people to donate unwanted kits and equipment to schools in the South African town.

But now she desperately needs funding to fly the huge bags of gear collected to South Africa in time for when the country hosts the World Cup in 2010.

Gemma decided she wanted to help the football-mad youngsters after spending part of a gap year there. The former Greenhead College student taught football in the town and found that despite football being the country’s biggest sport, the poorer schools had little or no equipment.

Gemma was based at the Khansiya education centre, a private school, but was sent out to coach at Benson Shiviti, Ndzalama and Hatshama schools, which are three poor schools in the remote town.

She said: “None of the schools have footballs and the school I was based at has to provide five footballs to them. But these have to be shared out between three schools and between about 50 kids!

“The children have no equipment and they have to play sport in their school uniforms. The schools don’t have a lot of money, but if they did it wouldn’t be put into sport because it’s not seen as a big part of the school day.

“Football is huge over there because it’s the main sport that they play. The kids don’t have things like televisions and Playstations, so they spend a lot of time playing, but because they are poor they have to play with rolled up carrier bags!

“They are so enthusiastic about football, and they are really good at it, even better than children in this country, but they are hard to coach properly because they don’t want to do warm-ups – they just want to get the ball and play big games!”

After her eye-opening experiences in the country, Gemma enlisted the help of her club, which plays at Huddersfield New College, Salendine Nook.

Gemma, who plays for the club’s Open League Ladies team, said: “We had a really good response, and we have collected three massive bags full of gear.

“The donations came mainly from members, and we now have loads of football shirts, jackets, shorts and socks, and goalkeepers’ gloves and bibs. We’ve also got three brand new footballs for the children.”

Gemma, who is starting a sports degree at Durham University next week, said: “We’ve got at least 35 kilograms of kit and it’s going to cost at least £150 to get it over there, which is very expensive so we need people to sponsor us to pay for it.”

Anyone wanting to make a donation to help send the football gear to the children, should contact Gemma on 01484 686728.