YOUNG archaeologists appeared on TV last night after completing a dig at Accrington Stanley’s old home of Peel Park.

The pupils found an array of clues to the park’s former life, including relics of the old football ground such as netting, slates from the stands’ roofs and beer bottles.

The land is now park of the playing fields at Peel Park Primary School but was home to Stanley from 1919 until the club resigned from the Football League in 1962.

The club is now based across town at the Crown Ground, where it moved to after re-forming in 1968.

Last night the dig was featured in BBC Late Kick Off. The Late Kick Off Team, archaeology students and professors from UCLan along with children from Peel Park Primary School completed the dig last week.

Abigail Worrall, from the school, said: “The dig was able to uncover a variety of artefacts, including debris of the stands which burnt down over 40 years ago.

“The children looked in to the history of the club and the sorts of things they could discover before they began digging.

“We also looked of the old pictures and maps to compare what the field looks like now and what it used to look like.

“Some of them now are interested in becoming archaeologists, which they may never have considered if it wasn’t for this project.”

In the 1950s Accrington’s Peel Park had been one of the first grounds in the country to use floodlights. The ground record attendance of 17,634 was set on November 15, 1954, for the visit of Blackburn Rovers for a floodlit friendly.