Champion the Clydesdale Horse

We recently asked our young cbfootball.co.uk fans to design a mascot for our sponsorship of the SPL, and we had a number of excellent entries.

Quite a few of the designs featured a Clydesdale horse, but our favourite drawing was from Michael Kinnaird, aged 11, from Lenzie, whose horse had a fantastic face.

Michael's design was transformed into a real mascot costume, and he got to meet Champion along with his own team's mascot, Hoopy the Huddle Hound, ahead of the recent Celtic v Aberdeen game.

On seeing how his design had been turned into reality, Michael said: "Wow, that looks really like my drawing! But so much bigger. It was amazing to be down on the pitch and see myself on the big screen, and I got my photo taken with Andreas Hinkel too, it was a great day."

Clydesdale Bank Sponsorship Manager Steven Hunt commented: "There were a lot of great ideas and drawings from the children entering this competition, we were very impressed with the standard and the creativity. The moment we saw Michael's drawing, we knew that it would make a perfect mascot for us. A Clydesdale horse keeps the link to the Clydesdale Bank, and this horse looks very friendly and approachable, which is how we aim to be as a company."

Champion's first appearance was actually at the Hearts FC Race Night at Musselburgh Racecourse. He competed in the Clydesdale Bank sponsored Mascot Race, and he came a very respectable third. Teenie from Hearts reached the winning post first, with Dundee United's Terry the Terror not too far behind.

Champion will be appearing at SPL games around the country, so look out for him and give him a wave.