Kent teenage footballer Sam Porter joins 21 other hopefuls on Wednesday hoping to win a professional contract with Swindon.

The 18-year-old from Walderslade, near Chatham, has played his way through to the Samsung Win A Pro Contract finals at Swindon where just one player, from an initial 3,500 applicants, will be signed on by the League 1 club.

Swindon manager Danny Wilson will be casting his eye over the finalists at the Wiltshire club’s County Ground and Porter is confident he can succeed, despite playing out of position in the competition.

"I’m not going to doubt myself and I think I’ve got as good a chance as anybody else," he said.

"I’ve done well at centre-back so far. The strikers can stand out and maybe as a defender you have to put a bit more effort into it. I can’t name many centre backs who are left-footed so I have that on my side and this is a great opportunity for me."

Porter (pictured) usually plays left-back or on the wing for Bearsted Football Club but during the initial heats those positions were filled and so he slotted in at central defence and has excelled ever since.

The final heats were held at Dartford’s Princes Park ground and Porter is dreaming of landing a professional deal at a Football League club.

He said: "I didn’t think I would get this far and so I’m delighted. I’m just looking forward to the challenge now.

"I’m running every day to keep fit for the trials and I’m just on a high at the moment. Hopefully something can come out of this. To become a professional footballer means the world to me. It’s always been my ambition and I can’t see myself doing anything else."

Porter started his route to the finals by registaring with the FootballCV website and head coach Danny Nicholls assessed him at Dartford.

Nicholls said: "Sam has shown fantastic ability so far but this is something new altogether. He’ll need to demonstrate to Danny (Wilson) and the Swindon staff that he can make the step up to professional football."