AMATEUR footballers have scored a massive hit with their gaudy looking kit which has won them a place in the top ten football blunders of all time.

But Bedale AFC say detractors will be eating their words as they cook up a storm with their new sausage themed pink and orange strip.

The team is sponsored by Heck sausages, which has just built a factory nearby and chairman Martyn Coombs admits when the local company’s marketing team came up with the “interesting design” for their kit they were a bit taken aback.

But it’s been a huge hit winning them acclaim on internet football sites including Who Ate All the Pies, the UK soccer Shop has put them top favourite to win the “Worst Kit of the Season” award and another YouTube site entitled the Ten Worst Football F****** of all time has put them seventh.

A major achievement has been persuading eleven Yorkshire, now known as Porkshire, guys to don pink and orange sausage branded kits.

Martyn said it’s now a badge of honour for the team: “ As an amateur football club we rely on the generosity of local businesses to sponsor us, health and fitness you can appreciate is paramount, in the past we’ve been sponsored by Hall’s Fish and Chip’s of Bedale, R and R Ice Cream of Leeming Bar and now Heck Sausages, so you can see our bodies are temples.

"I used to teach Andrew Keeble, the owner of Heck Sausages and when they opened the new plant they were keen to get involved with the club, but obviously their marketing department wanted to make a statement.

“All the teams including the junior team play in green and yellow, so the change kit is the sausage one. We were a bit unsure at first but it’s had a phenomenal reaction. The players, perhaps understandably were apprehensive, but now the first and second team fight over who is going to wear it,” he added.

Mr Coombs is not exactly convinced that the other clubs are envious of the kit but they always get a good reception, especially as Heck provide them with sausages for the after match sustenance.

It's become so popular he's even had two requests from individuals to buy the shirts and a lady from France has been in touch because she is writing a book about sausages.

UK soccer Shop which put them up for the worst kit award said:"That is an awesome graphic pattern on the shirt. Dazzling in fact. After much discussion, we’ve come to the conclusion that this is in fact a camouflage kit. We just haven’t worked out what the players are hiding from.

"A stealth attack on their opponents? Springing the offside trap by startling their foes? It’s a tough call."

Either way for the Bedale boys it's become a winner, helping them to bring home the bacon. The first team won the North Riding Saturday Challenge Cup last season making them the county champions and the reserves went up to division 1 of the Harrogate League.

With the start of the new season hopes are high they can trot on and clinch further honour, but one thing Mr Coombs is determined to do is to throw down the gauntlet for next years kit.

"Having made such an impact with this years, we really feel we want to make it big, so we're expecting the marketing team at Heck to come up with something even more adventurous, that's the challenge, we want to get into the top three of the worlds ten worst," he added.