MANY students will spend the festive season in the library swotting up for next term's exams but former Palatine High School pupil Mel Walker will do her swotting in the local park.

For eighteen-year-old Mel is studying at the National Women's Football Academy at Durham University.

Mel said: "I have been playing since I was at primary school and played for the county's under-16s team. I joined Preston North End ladies team when I was 14 and I have been with them ever since."

Last year Mel was one of 18 women picked from 52 on her course to go to the USA to play football.

"We won all our games over there," said Mel, who is currently deciding what to do next in her career.

She said: "I could go to university and go on to do a teaching course to enable me to coach sports.

"Alternatively, I could go back to the States and play football professionally. Women get paid over there."

But whether she will make as much money as her sporting hero, David Beckham, remains to be seen.

"Women's football is coming on," she said: "The standard has improved so much recently and it should hopefully develop. It would be good because we deserve the same chances as men."

And every weekend Mel comes back to Lancashire to play with her team in the North West Premier League, hoping the talent scouts for the England squad will be watching.