A SCHOOLBOY is today spending his 13th birthday in hospital, after police said he ran into the path of a car while playing football near his home.

Mark Philip Brown became a teenager today, but instead of celebrating the milestone at his home in Springfield Avenue, Bacup, with his parents and two brothers, he was on a ward at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury.

On Tuesday at 6.35pm he was playing with his cousin and friends in Vale Street, Bacup, when Traffic Sgt Russ Gregory said he ran into the path of a Peugeot 106 driven by Vanessa Pilling, 31, of Vale Street.

He was taken to Rochdale Infirmary but transferred to Manchester, where yesterday he was being operated on to have the broken bones in his leg pinned back together.

His dad Philip said: "I had only just come out of hospital myself when my wife came upstairs and said Mark had been knocked down.

"He was only saying the other day he had never broken any bones. That saying comes true -- you should never tempt fate."

Mark, a pupil at All Saints RC High School, Rawtenstall, is football crazy and supports Manchester United.

His dad said: "I don't know how he is going to cope with having a pot on his leg, because he is such a lively boy and always on the go."

Philip is at home with Mark's two brothers David, 17, and Joshua, five. Mark's mum Jacqueline, is at her son's bedside.

He said: "I managed to get transport to take his brothers to see him in hospital on Wednesday night and I hope he is going to be allowed home in the next few days.

"His younger brother is lost without him because during the holidays they spend all their time together playing."

Police said the car driver was uninjured.