Oxford United is at last topping the league - with the best young apprentices in the country.

The club's youth development scheme turned out nine graduates in the Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (ASE) Programme - more than any of the 71 other teams in the scheme.

Education Support office Ed Duckham said: "It's a fantastic achievement.

"Of course we would love it if all our youngsters went on to become professional footballers, but that doesn't happen.

"This apprenticeship is an excellent fallback - if they don't go on to play, they are qualified to work in other areas of the sport."

The apprenticeship is equivalent to three A-Levels and successful 'scholars' receive a Level Two coaching certificate plus an NVQ in Achieving Excellence in Sports Performance.

Mr Duckham added: "We have always run an education course at Oxford United, but we have only been running the apprenticeships for the past three years - these nine lads were from the second intake."

The talented nine were: Jerome Anderson, Luke Bennett, Tom Franklin, David Malloy, Daniel Meade, Gareth Tucker, Ben Weedon, Chris Weedon and Andrew Younie.

Two of the lads are going to university, one is trying to get into coaching and two have moved on to other clubs.

But David Malloy, Ben Weedon and Luke Bennett have since won year-long contracts with United and are training with the first team.

Luke Bennett, 19, a former Fitzharrys School pupil from Abingdon, said: "We were all really chuffed to pass and also to be the best club in the country.

"The course was pretty hard at times - and I think we all would have preferred to have been out training on the football field! But it was good, and taught us a lot about coaching and also the physiology and psychology of the sport.

"I have been with the club since I was 15 and although I have a contract until the end of the season, I am injured at the moment and do not know what is going to happen in the future.

"Some of the lads who came through this apprenticeship before us have gone on to become coaches and that might be something I would consider in the future too."

United's youth development officer, Les Taylor, added: "We make sure that the lads work hard on the education side of things, and I'd like to thank Lawrence Langdon of Law Training for looking after them.

"I would also like to praise Ed Duckham, Justin Merritt and Mark Jones who have been tutoring the lads and have done a fantastic job with them.

"Those qualifications are certainly going to help the boys in the future. And this year's scholars will be working hard to try and better those results."