YOU'VE heard of Busby's Babes and Fergie's Fledglings, but how about Steve's Sucklings?

Cinderford Town's rise up the Southern League table this season has been eye-catching, but what's most remarkable is they've done it with an inexperienced bunch of fresh faced players barely out of school.

Town's semi-professional squad is so young that many of them cannot drive and eight or nine regularly turn up with their mums and dads in tow.

A lot of the parents sit together in the stand to watch the games before ferrying their boys home again.

In fact, 16 members of the squad are aged 24 or under.

Town committee man Stuart Tait believes there can't have been too many Cinderford squads in the club's history with a younger average age.

He said: "I certainly haven't seen a younger squad than ours at this level of football. It's pretty unusual."

Babe of them all is Connor Kingdon, who is barely 16.

Dean Lee, Josh Egan and Alex Harris are all 18, while Andy Lewis, Matt Barnes and Ashley Malcolm are 19.

Nick Hancock is 20, Dan Harrison 21 and Nick McCootie 22.

Warren Archer and Matt Smith are both 23, while Mike Whittington, Craig Tait, Greg Lewis and captain Dale Evans are the relative fogies of the side at the grand old age of 24.

The only regular playing member of the squad over the age of 30 is Danny Haines, who is 33.

Boss Steve Peters – one of the youngest managers in the Southern League at 33 – believes giving youth its head has more advantages than disadvantages.

He said: "With young players you're not always going to get consistency but the lads here are trusting, they listen and they want to get better.

"From my point of view, there are no bad eggs.

"Above all they are all good players who want to work and, because they're young, they are naturally fit.

"The future of this club is bright. If you think they are good players now just add two or three years of experience and they will be even better.

"I hope some of them go on to bigger and better things.

"A lad like Josh Egan, for instance, is capable of playing at a much higher level than Cinderford."