A Wolves under-9s match pulled in more viewers than some Premier League matches – after more than half a million tuned in to watch around the world.
A friendly game between the youngsters and a touring team from China proved so popular it dwarfed the TV audience who tuned in to see the first team’s bid derby against local rivals Aston Villa.
The Championship club were delighted when they were asked to play a five-a-side friendly against a group of kids visiting from China.
But when they turned up for the game at the Sir Jack Hayward training ground on Sunday they were stunned at the global interest in the game.
For the visitors had arranged for the match to be streamed on the internet on Chinese social media site Weibo so fans back home could see what happened.
And the viewing figures for the game showed over 500,000 supporters tuned in to take in the action.
The stunning audience number meant the under-9s side were watched by more people than tuned in to see Wolves and local rivals Villa clash in the Championship the previous day.
Sky Sports broadcast the midlands derby on Saturday, with the match being watched by 405,000 people.
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Wolves Academy’s head of coaching and development Marc Campbell said: “We were delighted to welcome the young players and coaches to the academy.
“It was a trip organised by Global Image Sports and their links both with Thomas Cook Sports in China and another company called Xplore.
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“The players are over here to gain experience and had done a fair bit of training elsewhere so it was nice to arrange the friendly five-a-side game against some of our players which took place in the Academy Arena.
“We also took the opportunity to show the travelling party around the facilities at Compton Park and they were impressed by what they saw here.
“All in all it was a very positive experience for everybody concerned and is just another of those relationships that can really help in promoting the work that we do here at Wolves Academy.”
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