Women's World Cup 2023: Lionesses Lucy Bronze and Ellie Roebuck praise selfless Sheffield superfan Leah Walton

England's Lionesses have praised a young superfan from Sheffield for her enterprising efforts to support a boy battling cancer.

Leah Walton, aged 10, has raised more than £14,500 to help Jude Mellon-Jameson by selling World Cup-themed homemade scrunchies and keyrings.

Four-year-old Jude, who is from Woodhouse Mill, in Sheffield, and is the son of former Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Arron Jameson, is fighting high-risk neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer. His parents are trying to raise as much as possible to fund his treatment to give him the best possible chance of survival.

Leah's fundraising efforts have caught the attention of Lionesses Lucy Bronze and Sheffield's own Ellie Roebuck. Before flying out to Australia for the Women's World Cup, they met the youngster and presented her with signed shirts, boots and a ball to keep and auction off. Former Lioness Jill Scott, meanwhile, has filmed herself praising Leah's scrunchies, which helped to boost sales.

Leah started making the scrunchies and keyrings after receiving a sewing machine for Christmas last year, and she began selling them at ScrapDragon, a creative reuse centre in Pitsmoor, Sheffield, in aid of Jude.

Leah's dad, Craig Walton, contacted Lucy Bronze's agent while on holiday in Barcelona to see if she would meet his daughter while the England and Barcelona right-back was training in the city.

He told the PA news agency: “The idea was just to ask Lucy if she could just come and spend 10 minutes with us after training and she surprised Leah, tapped her on the shoulder, and then took her inside this Barcelona training ground and we spent an hour and a half with her on a tour of the training ground.”

Leah told PA that her football hero was 'really, really kind' and gave her signed football boots to keep and a football to auction off. Leah was also given two shirts signed by England goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck.

Leah said: “She gave us this shirt to donate, which raised £300, and she gave me a shirt for myself to keep and now it’s up in my bedroom on my wall.”

Mr Walton added: “Her mum gave us the shirts and we pulled Ellie to one side at a game where she wasn’t playing and told her all about (the fundraising) personally as well.”

Leah's scrunchies grabbed the attention of a family member of Jill Scott, who recorded a video message earlier this month for the youngster. In the video, she said: "I love your scrunchies. I’ve heard that you’re really working hard to raise money for charity so keep up the good work.

“Thanks for mine. I’ll be wearing mine at the World Cup. Hopefully it’ll bring the Lionesses some luck.”

Mr Walton said: “Hopefully she’ll take it with her because we’re watching with eagle eyes now.

“Whether or not she will or not, we don’t know, but it sold a lot more scrunchies with that as an advert, with Jill Scott having one of our scrunchies in her hand.”

Mum Charlotte Walton, 37, said her daughter was 'amazing', adding: "She comes up with the daft ideas and we just go along with it."

Leah said the 'inspirational' and 'heroic' Lionesses prompted her to start playing for Sheffield Wednesday’s under-11s team and now the young footballer is 'really excited' about the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. She added: “Bring another trophy home, Lionesses.”