A PROMISING young footballer scored outstanding GCSE results after putting the sport on the backburner to concentrate on his studies.

Paul Rainford was awarded an impressive nine A*s and a B after cutting out training sessions and turning down opportunities to go on trial at a number of clubs.

The sporty 16-year-old spent three years in the Bolton Wanderers Football Academy.

However, when the exam period started, Paul felt there were just not enough hours in the day to go to training, revise for exams and do coursework, so he decided to put playing football on the backburner.

Paul, a pupil at Bolton School Boys' Division, said: "I thought I would concentrate on my studies because no one can take my exams away from me, even though I would like to do something with football in the future."

Paul, of Fairlyn Drive, Over Hulton, intends to study A-levels in history, chemistry, biology and German.

Paul is going to see how demanding A-levels are before he thinks about resuming his footballing career.