NANTWICH Town's Weaver Stadium has been selected as a potential training venue within England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018.

The stadium has been identified as a possible training camp to host one of the 32 competing national teams if the 2018 World Cup is held in England.

The club’s business manager Michael Chatwin said: "It’s a great honour for a club like Nantwich Town to be chosen.

“To think that we could have the world’s best footballers from the likes of Brazil, Argentina or Germany based at the Weaver Stadium is fantastic. "A lot of people have put a lot of time into developing the facilities and we can all be proud that Nantwich has been selected as a training base.”

Nantwich Town is one of four clubs that Manchester is putting forward as part of its bid to stage World Cup games in the city. Roger McLaughlin at the Northwest Regional Development Agency has been instrumental in pulling together the training camps for Manchester’s application as a host city. He said: “The facilities at Nantwich Town are very impressive.

"The pitch, the stadium and the location is likely to be of great interest to one of the participating countries if the World Cup comes to England.”

Manchester is one of 16 English cities applying to host World Cup games and will learn in December whether it will go forward as part of England’s bid to bring the World Cup back to these shores for the first time since 1966. Manchester is bidding to stage matches at the City of Manchester Stadium and Old Trafford, but each of the cities also has to identify a small number of training camps. As an attractive market town Nantwich has a string of hotels, while cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Stoke are all within easy travelling distance. The £4m Weaver Stadium, built in 2007, has been accredited by the Premier League and currently hosts reserve matches for Stoke City.

“It’s exciting to think that World Cup stars could be training on our pitch,” said Neville Clarke who has served on the club committee for 50 years. “World Cup winner Roger Hunt played on our old ground at Jackson Avenue as a youngster with Stockton Heath but it would be amazing to have some of the best footballers in the world training at our new stadium.”

Town Councillor Arthur Moran added: “This is terrific news and would really put Nantwich on the map. "The football club has worked hard to build up its facilities for the local community and if we did host one of the competing countries at Nantwich in 2018 it would be a further boost to the local economy.”