AN EIGHT-year-old Liverpool fan from Swindon has delayed his family’s holiday after being selected from a national ballot to be the Reds’ mascot for a match at the County Ground on Sunday.

Lucky Joseph Beavis was selected from thousands of names on a Liverpool membership database to be mascot at the one game which happened to be around the corner.

The Westlea Primary School pupil had been due to fly out to Majorca with his family in the early hours of Sunday, but when dad Lee, 32, got the call on Tuesday a decision had to be made.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. What are the chances of this ever friendly and I looked for the date as soon as possible.

When I saw it, my stomach dropped – the one weekend we couldn’t do,” he said.

The family had agreed it would be too expensive and too much hassle to rearrange their holiday to fit in the football match - until the Premier League giants got in touch this week.

Lee pays an annual membership fee of £20 to make his son part of the Junior Red scheme run by the club, which also puts him in for the regular mascot ballots.

When he heard Joseph had been plucked from the nationwide ballot to be the mascot in Swindon, it was a coincidence he and wife Amy could not ignore.

“Joseph was leaping around and he hasn’t stopped. He said he was happy to give up the holiday to be Liverpool’s mascot,” said Lee.

Lee found a new outgoing flight from Bristol.

“It’s crazy, for an eight-year-old boy in his home town to be pulled out of a nationwide ballot as the mascot for Liverpool when they play Swindon,” said Lee.

The schoolboy already gets given a new Liverpool kit every year for his birthday, but will be sent a new set for his matchday duties, which include a warm-up with the players on the pitch and a page in the programme.

“I will be pushing him out of the way to shake a few hands. He and I are absolutely buzzing.”