Motorsport students at a Southgate college are helping a football legend in a bid to take a racing car to the Le Mans endurance race.

BTEC students at Southgate College in High Street are working with former England star Luther Blissett as he tries to take the motorsport team he has founded with strikers John Barnes and Les Ferdinand to the 24-hour race held at the French circuit.

The former Watford and AC Milan player, who won 14 caps for his country, formed the team five years ago to try and get more Caribbean drivers into racing, with the team’s name marking the year 1948 when migrants started to arrive in the UK.

The 54-year-old visited the college’s vehicle workshops on Friday, where students are working on a car to be used by the team in races, with youngsters on business, IT and media courses also planning to get involved.

College principal David Byrne said: “This is the perfect chance for our motorsports students to get involved in a real-life project with concrete ambitions and it’s an exciting prospect to think that the finished car could end up racing competitively at Le Mans.”

The budding mechanics are also working on a car for the Formula Student competition, where teams from universities and colleges across the country compete to build small-scale Formula One cars.