AN EIGHT-year-old Brentwood lad had a dream day as he rubbed shoulders with some of the country’s best footballers...and walked on to the hallow’d Wembley turf with them.

Freddie Parker joined Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny as he marched onto the pitch for Gunners charity shield match against Premier League champions Manchester City recently.

The charity shield is the traditional season curtain raiser for the Premier League, which started on Saturday, and was played out in front of a 71,500-strong crowd and a TV audience of millions.

Freddie won the chance to be a player escort - or mascot - after taking part in a competition run on McDonald’s Kickstart website.

Freddie said he is the envy of his friends: “To walk out onto the Wembley pitch was brilliant!

“Seeing all the fans and hearing all of the noise that the crowd made was amazing – all of my friends at school are really jealous.”

Sir Geoff Hurst, McDonald’s director of football, who scored a World Cup winning hat-trick at Wembley said: “Walking out at Wembley in front of a large crowd was an experience that I will never forget and I’m sure Freddie won’t either.”