Under 10s Win St Francis Tournament
On Wednesday 10th November the U.10s set off to St Francis and their first tournament of the year with an air of expectancy and anticipation. The hour long journey did nothing to dampen their spirits and the boys, under the guidance of Mr Davey, were confident ahead of their first game against Thorngrove who they had already beaten earlier in the season. As they were soon to find out though there are no guarantees in football and Thorngrove proved more than a test. With only a few minutes to go one of their midfielders unleashed a fantastic strike that Daniel Collins could do nothing about and the ball ended up in the roof of our net. 1 – 0 to Thorngrove (even after the pass of the day from Patrick Mannion!). This was certainly a huge dent to the confidence of the team and had it not been for some inspiring comparisons to Spain and the World Cup (they too had lost their opening game to Switzerland before going onto lift the trophy) this may have signalled an early journey home. Thankfully though the boys were able to rise to the occasion and went onto beat St Francis B team 1 – 0 and Rookwood 1 – 0 to qualify for the semi final. There was certainly a huge sigh of relief from Mr Davey!
In the semi-final they were drawn against the home side (St Francis) who had won their group. They were a very good side who put us under huge amounts of pressure for most of the game. The Daneshill defence was standing strong though and was being well marshalled by Sam Steele and Jude Smithers. Daniel Collins also made some great saves to keep the score 0 – 0. After absorbing lots of pressure there was an opportunity to counter attack. The ball was played through Alex Brown and up to Ben Walker who kept his calm and beat the keeper to make it 1 – 0 to Daneshill. With only a few minutes to go we were able to hang on and record a notable victory against a strong side.
In the other semi-final Thorngrove were playing Harpenden. This game was very tight and after extra time the teams could still not be separated. This meant the dreaded penalties, which Harpenden won.
So the final saw Daneshill up against a strong team from Harpenden who had 2 academy boys playing for them. Our boys showed no signs of nerves though and put in their best performance of the day. Our midfield was causing Harpenden a huge amount of problems as Charlie Lappin and Tom Leonard attacked them down the wings. In the end we proved far too strong for them and after 2 goals from Ben Walker the whistled blew and we were the champions!!
Congratulations to all the boys after a fantastic performance. I must also congratulate Mr Davey for his inspired management from the side lines.