FRIENDS took to the football pitch yesterday in a charity match in memory of a popular Amersham teenager.

The fourth annual Aaron West memorial match took place at Chesham United's ground as a tribute to the 16-year-old, and to raise money for the football academy set up in his memory.

Players from both sides gathered around the centre circle of the pitch prior to kick off while the Puff Daddy song 'I'll Be Missing You' was played, before a minute's applause in Aaron's honour.

Red and white balloons - the colours of Aaron's favourite football team, Arsenal - were also launched into the sky before the match kicked off.

Aaron, a promising goalkeeper, died from a rare form of liver cancer four years ago, two days before a fundraising match to help kickstart his dream of setting up a sports academy for youngsters.

Since then a match has been played at Chesham United's ground to raise money and awareness for the Aaron West Goalkeeping Academy, which is based at the Amersham School - where Aaron took his GCSEs while undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

In previous years the Aaron West XI made up of his friends has played a Wycombe Wanderers Community team but the side had to pull out late on.

This year the team faced an Our Chesham XI, which was put together by Tina Reading, a close friend of Aaron's mum Dax.

She said: "Dax rang me three weeks ago because they didn't have a team to play against. I did the most obvious thing and put a shout out up on the Our Chesham Facebook page. Within ten minutes all the boys had all said yes - I had a full team, a coach and a captain.

"Some of them knew Aaron and some didn't, but knew his story. They were all really honoured and all wanted to play, even though they've all been playing for their Sunday teams this morning.

"It's so nice to get all the boys together and do this. The fact we've got 20-odd boys who didn't even need to think about taking part is unbelievable. It shows how much people thought of Aaron."

Mrs West said: "It's an emotional get-together. It's a real family event now. As soon as I mentioned Aaron they were all here to help and they all play from the heart.

"The amount of support here is incredible."

The Our Chesham team won the game 2-0, with both goals coming in the first half.