Supermarket manager brings World Cup to England

Colin Morris accompanied the trophy from Rome to London and met footballers Wayne Rooney and Emmanuel Adebayor along the way.

The 20-year-old supermarket manager sent off a text message to a Coca-Cola competition earlier this month in the hope of winning a runner-up prize of England match tickets.

But a phone call days later revealed he had scooped a five-star, all-expenses-paid mission to escort the 36.5cm trophy to London.

The Manchester United fan, from Thame, said: “I was on my lunch at work reading a newspaper and I saw this fun questionnaire for the Fifa World Cup and it said 200 lucky runners-up would win tickets for England matches – that was all I was interested in.

“On the Monday I got a phone call saying I’d won the top prize. I was really shocked, I thought it was a wind-up at first.”

Mr Morris, a duty manager at the Co-op in Thame, was chauffeured to Gatwick Airport and flown first class to a five-star hotel in Rome.

He said: “The next day the World Cup turned up at our hotel and we were escorted with security back to London.

“I sat next to it on the plane, but I wasn’t allowed to touch it – even the Fifa officials had to use gloves to handle it.

“It was brilliant, absolutely fantastic.”

Describing the trophy which, under Fifa rules can only be touched by former winners and heads of state, he added: “It’s actually quite small, but it weighs 6kg so I was quite surprised how heavy it was.”

Back in London, Mr Morris met Manchester City striker Adebayor and Manchester United and England star Rooney, and discussed England’s chances of lifting the cup in South Africa later this year.

He said: “I had a two-minute chat with Wayne and he congratulated me on winning the competition. I said hopefully he can do the same this summer.

“He was a really nice bloke, really nice to talk to.”

He added: “England have got a good chance this year. I think we’ve got a good team and a good manager who can push the players on.”