A COACH company has gone into overdrive – to find enough coaches to ferry thousands of fans to Town’s play-off final on Sunday.

E Stott & Sons Ltd has been providing coaches for Town’s Supporters Club since 2002, as well as fans of the Giants.

But the Milnsbridge-based firm has had its work cut out – sourcing a record number of coaches for the final at Old Trafford.

Co-director Mark Stott, an avid Town fan, has been contacting coach companies across Yorkshire and Lancashire to pull together a massive fleet of 88 vehicles for the showdown against Peterborough.

His brother and co-director Carl, said: “We knew we would need quite a few coaches – and if it had been a Wembley final we would have expected to need a lot of them.

“But with the final being staged at Manchester, we imagined most people would go by train or car. We never thought we would reach almost 90 coaches.”

Said Carl: “This is more than previous play-offs and cup ties. In 2004, we totalled 65 coaches for the play-off final in Cardiff and 40 for the FA Cup ties with Chelsea in 2006 and 2008.

Carl said: “We run a fleet of 30 buses and coaches. We have 12 coaches, but we only have six of our own available on Sunday because the others are pre-booked for other events.

“We have a company in Leeming Bar, North Yorkshire, which we use when we need extra vehicles and they are providing 20 coaches.

“They also provided 40 when the Giants played in the Challenge Cup Final in 2009.

“But we have also had to get coaches from smaller operators around Yorkshire and Lancashire. Shearings are also supplying 10 coaches.”

Carl said demand had been swollen by the Town chairman’s decision to offer free tickets to the final for up to 800 schoolchildren. Fifteen coaches will be needed to take the youngsters to the match.

Said Carl: “The club has kept us posted on ticket sales on a daily basis. As things stand, we will have 88 coaches in total, but we may yet need a couple more.”

Most of the coaches – apart from those for the schoolchildren – will be leaving for the big match at 10am on Sunday from the St Andrew’s Road car park at Turnbridge.

Said Carl: “We are proud to be associated with Town and wish them all the very best for the game on Sunday.

Stotts is a family-run company dating back more than 50 years – supplying executive and standard coaches for social events and weddings, day outings, school trips and holidays.

It lists many major Huddersfield companies among its customers and also runs several local bus routes on behalf of West Yorkshire Metro.

FOOTBALLERS from Meltham CE Primary School will play a curtain-raiser match before Town’s big play-off final.

And teacher and coach Julian Rose said: “It would nice to make it a treble.

“We won the Huddersfield Schools football competition and last weekend won the English Schools contest down at Watford.

“Now we are playing a team from Bristol at Old Trafford and we’d love to win our third trophy.”

The team have won through to the npower Football League U11 Kids Cup Final.

The Meltham players are representing Huddersfield Town while their opponents from Henleaze School are representing Bristol Rovers.

The big kick-off for the youngsters is 1.40pm, 80 minutes before Town take to the field to play Peterborough United.

The game follows lunch and a tour of the Old Trafford ground.

And they’ve already had expert coaching from the likes of Town legend Andy Booth and Wales manager Gary Speed.