Wolves star Adama Traore challenges rival Aston Villa fans to sprint race in Sainsbury's car park

"Last year he was playing for Barcelona and now he's racing my kid in a Sainsbury's car park"

Three youngsters from the West Midlands have been telling ITV News Central how they've been left starstruck after being challenged to a sprint race by super-fast Premier League star, Adama Traore, in a Sainsbury's car park.

The Wolves and Aston Villa fans ran "as quick as they could" to the local superstore, and got chatting to the Wolves winger last night after stopping him for a photo.

Charlie Smith, 12 and his cousins Richie, 11, and Charlie Whitehouse, 13 were then challenged to a sprinting race against the former Barcelona winger, and the video has now gone viral on social media.

Charlie's dad Darryl, said: "We're massive Wolves fans and it's mad. This time last year he was playing for Barcelona and now he's racing my kid in a Sainsbury's car park," he smiled. "It's amazing really."

"Is anyone faster than me?"

Wolves super-fan Charlie saw on a Snapchat story that Adama Traore was at his local Sainsbury's in Wombourne, and rang his dad to tell him that he's going to be late home.

Left to right: Darryl, Charlie, Richie and Charlie are huge football fans (and rivals) Credit: Darryl Smith

When they saw him coming, they ran over to get a photo and got chatting to him, when the footballer said: "Is anyone faster than me?"

Charlie recalled: "We all said 'nahhh' and then he said, 'Do you want a race?' and we said 'Yeah!'"

"As soon as we went off, I thought 'I might actually win this'

In the video, the kids can be seen lining up and decided to race to a blue car at the other end of the car park.

Once the race started they started laughing and shouting: "Yes Adama".


  • Charlie, who was filming the video, says his family love Adama and he was ecstatic to get to see him, let alone race him!

Charlie said: "I thought we would just get a photo then he'd walk off. But he was very talkative to us.

'When we saw the picture and me Richie and Charlie all knew that we had to get down there to get a picture'.

"He's the one that suggested to race us," Richie added. "He was really really nice."

Charlie Whitehouse, one of the youngsters in the video, is a rival Aston Villa fan from Birmingham and said he thought he "had him in the race."

"As soon as we went off, I thought 'I might actually win this' because he was level with us."

"But then he gave it two seconds and was off. It was great."

"He smoked us."

Youngsters got selfies with the Premier League star before the sprinting race Credit: Charlie Smith

"Dad, don't be mad but I'm going to go to Sainsbury's and look out for Adama"

Darryl Charlie's dad, said:

'Charlie was meant to be back at 6 and called me saying 'Dad, don't be mad but I'm going to go to Sainsbury's and look out for Adama because I've seen he's there on snapchat, I just want to get a photo and come back'.

"Then he called me 15 minutes later really excited, he sent me the video and I put it on social media and it went crazy.

"I put it on thinking one or two people might like it, then the next minute it had 700,000 views."

The 44-year-old continued: "It's just fantastic, you know a professional footballer, who earns tens or thousands of pounds a week spending time with children, because I don't think a lot of footballers interact with the kids anymore."

"So its great, it's made our year really.

"[He's a] great role model, great person and we're big Adama fans in the family.

"Me and Charlie are big Wolves fans and these two are Villa fans," he laughed. "But we just love football."

Wolves interim coach Steve Davis says it's encouraging to see positive stories like this about the club, who are struggling in the bottom part of the Premier League table.