Forest Green have signed ex-Manchester United trainee Chris Curran after meeting his flight home from Northern Ireland Under-19s duty.

The 18-year-old was returning from a tournament in Malta and was signed at Birmingham airport and registered in time for the trip to Barrow.

"It was a new one on me," secretary Colin Peake told BBC Gloucestershire.

"We sent a director to take the lad off the plane and catch up with the team coach at Walsall on the M6."

Curran is a left-sided attacking player and is manager David Hockaday's fifth signing in less than 10 days since being appointed Rovers boss.

As well as the dramatic timing, Peake explained there had been a headache in completing Curran's registration.

"While he'd been released by Manchester United, some agent had decided that he'd like this lad to go for a trial at Motherwell in the Scottish Premier," he said.

"So they'd got him cleared by the English FA while he'd been in Malta to go to Scotland, but he never arrived.

"Fortunately the English FA have been very good - they put me in touch with the registration office in Scotland and we finished up getting the international clearance revoked, sent back to Wembley and then to the Conference."

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