CHURCHGOERS will be the winners when the World Cup Final is held on Sunday – they will be able to watch the entire match live on a big screen from their pews.

St Michael-le-Belfrey, next to York Minster, will be showing the final between The Netherlands and Spain inside the church – and the congregation is hoping families with children will join them in a unique church occasion.

Visitors are welcome to bring non-alcoholic drinks with them and the congregation will be laying on tea and coffee in a bid to make a fun family atmosphere.

Curate Alistair Rycroft said: “We wanted to make sure that families were able to come and watch the final – it’s always much more fun to watch matches in a crowd, but if you’ve got young kids you can’t watch the game with them in a pub. “I think this is a great opportunity for all of us at St Michael le Belfrey to share our facilities, and love of football, with other people in York. We’ve got the space and the equipment to host the match, and the congregation is full of football fans, so it makes sense to bring the World Cup Final to St Michael le Belfrey.”

The event comes at the end of the church’s Summer Soul week in which congregation members have been going out into the community to speak about their faith and their work and holding an international café inside the church.

Sunday afternoon will start with a barbecue on the paved area immediately outside the church at 3.30pm followed by an earlier than normal evening service, so the church can be ready to go football mad from 6.30pm onwards.