Seaham youngster, Tommy English, has gone North of the border as he begins the next stage of his football career.

The 19-year-old has signed a two-and-a-half year contract with Scottish Premier Division side, Livingston, after impressing during a three-day trial last week.

Celtic also showed a strong a interest in English, but Livingston were first to react and offered the winger a deal after giving him a game in a behind closed doors match.

The left-sided player appeared in a few reserve team games, scoring against Sunderland last season and was part of the Newcastle's under-19 set-up where he supplied the ammunition for highly-rated striker, Michael Chopra, and Richard Offiong who recently spent time on loan at Darlington.

Offiong, incidentally, also went North last week when he joined Terry Butcher's Motherwell on loan.

English was coming to the end of his three-year apprenticeship at St James Park and father, also named Tommy, who played for Seaham Red Star in his day, decided to look elsewhere for to further his career, and his after reports his son is delighted with the move.

"He was supposed to come back down and visit but he couldn't because of all the snow. But he thinks it's great, he's really loving it," said his father.

"He was supposed to play the other night in the under-21s but it was postponed with the weather."

Tommy's elder brother, Michael, was in the same Newcastle youth team as Lee Clark while former Magpie, Lee Makel, will be a Livingston teammate. As a Seaham lad, English follows Brian Marwood, Nigel Gleghorn and Terry Fenwick into football.