Bacup cheerleaders to perform at Royal Albert Hall (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Bacup cheerleaders to perform at Royal Albert Hall

9:50pm Wednesday 21st July 2010 in

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CHEERLEADERS from Rossendale are to tread the boards at the Royal Albert Hall in front of Prince Edward.

A team of 20 teenagers from Pioneer Cheerleaders, in Bacup, have been chosen from hundreds of groups across the UK to perform at September’s CCPR On Show 2010 event.

There they will be joined by only a handful of other teams – at a venue most famously associated with the Proms music festival.

The achievement is particularly impressive because the team was only formed 18 months ago.

Head coach Fayhe-Louise Mitchell, 20, of Britannia, said she was ‘over the moon’ after discovering they had been selected.

She said: “I found out that we had been chosen via email and I was absolutely gobsmacked. I had to read it five times before I realised.

“To think our team has only been going for around a year-and-a-half and that we have been chosen is just amazing.

“It is a massive honour and a privilege to be asked to do such a performance and it will be an absolutely amazing experience for the girls.

“I am so proud of them as they work so hard week in, week out and for them to have been noticed after only attending two or three competitions is just brilliant. They really deserve it and are such a lovely bunch of girs I am lucky to have the privilege to coach.”

Fayhe-Louise, who has represented England in the Cheerleading World Championships, in Florida, said the experience inspired her to want to raise the sport’s profile in East Lancashire and she started the group in January last year.

The girls practice at Pioner Health and Fitness Studio, Fearns Community Sports College and the local scout hut, in Bacup.

Formed last year, they scooped first prize at the Bacup Carnival and Fayhe-Louise was named community coach of the year.

At the Royal Albert Hall in London, 20 of the group’s Junior B and Senior cheerleaders, aged 13 to 18 will perform in front of Prince Edward, CCPR’s president and guest of honour at the prestigious event.

In the next few weeks Fayhe-Louise will teach the girls the choreography set out by the UK Cheerleading Association before representatives of the national organisation visit the group to make sure they are up to standard.

The girls will then go to London for the performance on September 25.

“Its all so exciting,” said Fayhe-Louise.