County girl wows X Factor judges

A former Shropshire student was celebrating today after wowing judges on hit TV show The X Factor to win a place in the final 24 of the competition.

Suzie Furlonger was named as one of the final 24 singers in Saturday's show after beating thousands of singing hopefuls. She is now preparing to fly to the St Tropez home of her mentor Danni Minogue after the star was given the over-25 group to look after.

See our photo gallery below

Suzie, who celebrates her 27th birthday tomorrow, took her A-levels at Oswestry's North Shropshire College before attending Birmingham University.

Formerly from Gobowen, She now lives in London and works as an applicant manager, but has not given up her dream of singing success - she recently reduced her job to part-time to concentrate on her music career.

She was a member of all-girl quartet The 411 which had two top-four singles in 2004, with On My Knees and Dumb, and has more recently worked as a backing singer for Shayne Ward, winner of The X Factor in 2005, as well as for Take That and Candi Staton.

After performing on The X Factor on both Saturday and yesterday, Suzie won her place in the final 24.

When Danni, who mentored last year's winner Leon Jackson, was told she would be mentoring the over-25s group, including Suzie, she said: "That's so good, I'm so excited. Thank you, that's brilliant. This is going to be really good."

People in the Oswestry area said they would be rooting for Suzie, who is also a talented hurdler and represented Oswestry Olympians Athletics Club.

Moya Bevan-Thomas, a lecturer at Walford and North Shropshire College, where Suzie sat her A-levels, said it was no surprise she was doing so well.

"She always managed to combine her studies at college with her love of music, never missing an opportunity to pursue her interest in singing," she said.

Fans of the show will now see Suzie perform at her mentor's base in St Tropez on next week's show, where Danni will decide whether she is good enough to perform in the live shows.

Suzie's page in social networking website Facebook has been inundated with messages of support for her.

While her photos on the page show her with a host of celebrities at high-profile music events and opening of stores including Windsor's HMV when she was a member of The 411.

Of the other judges, Louis Walsh will be mentoring the groups, Simon Cowell will be mentoring the boys under-25 and Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole will be mentoring the girls under-25.

The show continues on ITV1 on Saturday, at 7.45pm.

By Kirsty Smallman

Suzie, pictured left, when she was a member of the all-girl group 411.

Suzie on stage with 411.

Suzie is also a talented hurdler and represented Oswestry Olympians Athletics Club.

Suzie was named as one of the final 24 singers in Saturday's show.

411, with Suzie second from the right.

Suzie celebrates her 27th birthday tomorrow.