SOCCER fanatic Yee Ming Low has travelled 6,000 miles from his homeland so he can learn to play like his hero, Gary Neville.

The 16-year-old, from Selengor, Malaysia, has spent £4,500 on a football diploma at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he is shown films of Neville as part of his course so that he can study the tricks of the full-back trade.

His coach, Melvyn Wilkes, formerly of Manchester City, reckons he could make the grade.

He said: "Yee Ming is improving all the time. He certainly has the potential to play in the football league."

The teenage defender found out about the two-year BTEC national diploma from the British council in Malaysia. He signed on after visiting the university's Cheshire campus with his parents.

The boy had seen Neville and his Manchester United team-mates after watching them on television at home.

Inspiration

Yee Ming said: "Gary Neville has given me so much inspiration. I love how Manchester United play and like to watch Gary Neville and how he passes the ball.

"The English Premier League is very popular back home. Football is a passion. I love the game."

Melvyn said: "He is a smashing lad, and very polite. He is learning the same things here as he would at a soccer club's academy. He really wants to play football full time.

"When you are training young footballers, you always pick out a special player as an inspiration, and Gary Neville is a very good right back."

But so far, Yee Ming has not been able to watch Neville in the flesh because of the right-back's injury-plagued season.