ON Thursday night Todd Kane, a young footballer from Warboys, called his mum Maxine and told her he had been selected to be part of Chelsea’s European Champions League final squad.

Two days later, Maxine Kane and her husband Michael were on a flight out to Munich and on Saturday night they were watching their 18-year-old son celebrate Chelsea’s dramatic Champions League win on Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena pitch as they sat in the stands with the players’ families.

Although he wasn’t in the matchday squad, it was still the stuff that dreams are made of.

“I can’t put it into words how we felt – I get tearful just thinking about it,” said Mrs Kane.

“He rang me up on Thursday and told me he was in the squad and I couldn’t believe it – I asked him to get us a couple of tickets so we could jump on the Eurostar. But then he rang back and told us we were on the chartered plane. We were put up in a hotel with the players’ wives and girlfriends.

“We’re a Chelsea family and for him to get his first team call-up for the Champions League final was amazing.”

Having been with the club since he was eight, the former Warboys youth cricketer was selected as a back-up defender in the squad having been placed on the club’s Champions League B-list earlier in the season.

He is yet to make a first team appearance for Chelsea but is a regular in the club’s reserves and was a part of the team that beat Blackburn Rovers in the two-legged FA Youth Cup final in April.

Martin Croucher, the former chairman of Warboys Cricket Club, who retired from that position during the summer, said: “He was a very good cricketer but he loved his football. He still comes back and visits us on a regular basis and is a lovely lad.

“All his family and friends are here.”

Kane signed a one-year scholarship deal and three-year professional contract with the London club and was named scholar of the year at the end last season. In October he was called up by England under-19s manager Noel Blake and has now played five games for his country.

He is in the England squad that is due to play its first 2012 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship elite qualification game at Preston North End’s Deepdale Stadium on Friday night.

That game, against Slovenia, will be followed by two further games, the first against Montenegro on Sunday at Rochdale’s Spotland ground, the other against Switzerland, again at Deepdale, next Wednesday.