A SCHOOLBOY impaled on a metal fence was saved by his football strip.

Arsenal fan John Hough escaped serious injury when he fell on to a 6in metal spike which went into his chest - just missing his vital organs.

Despite the 3in tear in his skin, miraculously the ten-year-old's Gunners strip did not rip.

Doctors told John's mother, Jackie McGlade, that the shirt had cushioned the blow from the tip of the spike, preventing it from piercing his lungs and heart.

The team - known as Lucky Arsenal - play in the Champions League final this week, and yesterday relieved Ms McGlade, 39, of Thorney Close, Sunderland, said her son would have died if he had not been wearing his shirt.

John, who is fanatical about Thierry Henry, and even shares his August 17 birthday with the striker, had been out playing in a friend's garden when he climbed on to a 2ft wall to look into the garden next door.

But the inquisitive youngster lost his balance and fell on to metal spikes on top of the adjoining fence, which runs around the flats in Toronto Square.

The Farringdon Primary School pupil managed to pull himself off the spike as friends rushed to fetch his mother, who found her son screaming with the pain.

Ms McGlade said: "It doesn't bear thinking about. The doctors said he's been very lucky not to have damaged a vital organ. If the spike had gone in any further, it would have ripped through his lungs and heart.

"He could have been killed if he hadn't been wearing his Arsenal strip."