Meet the Under 8’s Football Team Named After an Iconic Ford Muscle Car

Oct 15, 2025

DUNTON, UK – An Under 8’s football squad from Kent, England, has struck up a special relationship with Ford after their manager named the team “Mustangs”.

Paul Muddle, manager of the Mustangs Under 8 team at Orpington Football Club, explains: “When we were deciding our team name from a selection, traditionally all named after horses, I went straight for ‘Mustangs’ as I just thought it sounded cool!

“It was only later when talking with Spencer and Chris, who I work together with on the team, that the idea of talking to Ford came up. To be honest, it just started as a joke. It turned out that Spencer took it more seriously though.

“He actually reached out to Ford UK and they clearly liked the idea too, which surprised us all. I guess it makes sense as they’re a family brand and grassroots football is very much a family affair. They ended up supplying us with training kits and agreeing to send down a Mustang GT for our pre-season tournament.”

Paul adds: “Usually, we play in a gold kit, but we asked to play the tournament in the black Mustang training kit. Everyone loved it, and having the Mustang there too was great… I had a lot of people asking if it was mine. Obviously, I told them the truth at first, but I’ll admit I did pretend it was mine a few times later on.”

At the tournament, the kids did brilliantly, getting to the semi-finals only to be knocked out with the last kick of the game.

“As for the kits, we’re hoping to use them in matches again throughout the season, so even if we don’t win, at least we’ll have the coolest kits,” Paul says. “And we may get some bigger t-shirts made as quite a few parents wanted one, which we’ve not had before. It seems we’re all Mustang fans in more than one way now.”