A SIX-year-old Scotland fan received a huge surprise from her hero Jen Beattie and the women's team after she wrote a heart-warming letter at school about the defender.

Back in March, Beattie was sent the letter Caris Thomas had written for International Women's Day on Twitter, which spoke of how the youngster was inspired by the Arsenal player's battle with breast cancer.

Beattie - daughter of former Scotland rugby and British Lions international John - was diagnosed with the condition in October 2020 aged 29 in the midst of the pandemic.

But, despite going through surgery to remove the lump and subsequent treatment, she continued to play for Arsenal and Scotland.

Caris, who plays as a defender herself, wrote in her letter: "Jennifer Beattie is 30 years old and plays for Arsenal and Scotland. This woman inspires me because she had cancer and was able to play football again. When I grow up I want to be like her."

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Beattie was so moved by it that she and other Scotland players treated Caris to a massive surprise by inviting her down to the training ground to meet them.

Caris thought she was just going to see where the team trained, and so was full of smiles when she unexpectedly met her heroes.

The Scottish FA shared an emotional video of Caris' experience on social media where she shakes hands and shares high fives with lots of players and receives a goody bag and shirt with Beattie's name on the back.

Beattie said: "Back in March I got tweeted the most adorable little letter that a girl called Caris had written. It was for me and I looked at it and it just blew me away. It actually made me pretty emotional so we brought her down here today to give her a little surprise."

When Caris was asked to join in with the training session, she giggled and replied: "Yes please!" 

She told Beattie she was her favourite Scotland player before Beattie replied: "You're my favourite fan."

Caris' mum Lianne said: "As part of International Women's Day Caris was asked to write about a woman that inspired her as part of her homework. She wrote a paragraph about Jen and how Jen had had cancer and had come back and was playing again.

"All she knew was that she was getting a look at the training facility, she didn't know she was going to meet anyone. 

"When Jen appeared I physically saw her start to tremble because she was so excited."