Football County Finals

The school football team (Dalton, Harry, Ethan, Mckye, Billy, Jenson, Evan and Eythan) took part in the County Finals of the Lincolnshire Schools’ Football Association, U11 Danone Cup, School Team Competition on Saturday 21st January at Wainfleet Road, Skegness.

Taking part in the competition were the 8 district competition winners split into two groups:
Group 1
William Alvey (Sleaford district)
Parish Church (Gainsborough district)
Hawthorn Tree (Boston district)
Malcolm Sargent (Stamford district)
Group 2
Market Rasen (Market Rasen district)
Richmond (East Coast district)
Linchfield (Spalding district)
Saxilby (Lincoln district)

We began with a game against Market Rasen where a goal in the first 20 seconds helped to calm any nerves and set us on the way to a 3 - 0 victory.
Next up was Linchfield who had also won their opening game. This was a much closer game and we had to be at our best to run out 1 - 0 winners.
Going into our third game, against Saxilby, we knew that a draw would be enough to see us into the semi-finals but a defeat would see us miss out on goal difference. Once again we played very well and won by 2 goals to nil, securing top spot in our group in the process.

In our semi-final we played Parish Church who had finished as runners up in their group. We started strongly and were 3 goals up by half time. This allowed us to try and save a little energy for the final and although Parish Church came back strongly we restricted them to a single long range goal.
In the final, we played Malcolm Sargent Primary who had also won their group. We went behind for the first time in the competition early on in the first half. However, we looked to be getting back into the match and created a few opportunities of our own before a goal in the dying seconds of the first half put us 2 goals down. In the second half we couldn't break through a strong defence and had to settle for second place.
Throughout the tournament the whole team displayed a high level of sportsmanship, determination and skill and should be proud of their efforts.