A NINE-year-old Bury boy enjoyed a dream day out to watch his beloved Manchester City after winning a competition to become a junior reporter for television's MOTD Kickabout programme.

And Archie Smith's trip to the Etihad Stadium was complete when his team beat Newcastle United 5-0 in last Saturday's clash to record the club's biggest win of the season so far.

Archie was selected from dozens of entries after impressing a judging panel, which included City star Pablo Zabaleta, with his punditry skills when commentating on the famous clip of Sergio Aguero’s 2012 title winning goal against QPR.

He was then invited down to the club's ground to take on the role of a journalist for MOTD Kickabout.

After collecting his press pass along with all the other journalists, Archie watched from the blue carpet as the City team arrived at the ground before jumping in front of the camera for an exclusive interview with Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho. His live interview, in which he asked about City’s new recruit Wilfried Bony, was beamed across the Etihad Stadium as part of the pre-match entertainment for fans.

It was then onto the press conference suite where Archie was given the honour of reading out the team sheet to the assembled media.

Prior to kick-off, the Bury boy was down at pitchside to see the City and Newcastle players come out for their warm-up and to record his thoughts to camera on how he reckoned things would shape up for the match. During the game, Archie was busy compiling a match report and comparing notes with fellow journalists in the press box.

At full time, the youngster was given an exclusive interview with City manager Manuel Pellegrini in the tunnel after the Blues had cruised to victory

Then he was off to the press conference to hear Pellegrini address the questions from the assembled media.

His final job for the day was to file a piece to camera pitchside, compiling his thoughts on the team’s performance.

Speaking about his day, Archie said: “I was really excited when I found out I was the winner of the competition. My favourite part about being a reporter was being able to interview Fernandinho and manager Manuel Pellegrini.

“I had an awesome day and met lots of people who gave me good advice on becoming a match day reporter too. The day really was a dream come true.”

Archie won the prize as part of the Manchester City’s Junior Cityzens membership scheme, and his day as a journalist is being shown on CBBC’s MOTD Kickabout on Saturday (Feb 28) at 7.40am.