Written by Mr Dales

A record seventeen teams from nine different local schools arrived at the Junior School for the annual Primary Sports League curtain-raiser, the U11 Boys Football Tournament. St. Chris was represented by United, Town and Rovers and each stepped up to the challenge immediately.

While United and Rovers played a more pragmatic game, Town started to lash in the goals and ending up winning their group comfortably, with Marcus, Iyad and Yusuf running riot. Rovers found goalscoring a bit harder to come by but managed to complete their group stage with just one loss, with credit going to Mohamad for some excellent goalkeeping. United were also forced to rely on their goalie and Zeid was more than up to the task with some incredible saves, including two in the semi-final penalty shoot-out that got United into the final to meet Town.

With very little to separate the teams on paper, both sets of players went for it in the final but could not be split at the full-time whistle. Extra-time brought more of the same, as did a further period of Golden Goal time. In the end, it was decided that neither team deserved to lose so they were declared joint-winners. Congratulations, United and Town!

Thanks to Mr. Dales (United). Mr. Maye (Town) and Sparta’s Ryan (Rovers) for their management finesse. Thanks also go to Mr. Gosling, Mr. Jones, Mr. Holloway and Mr. Gregory, who were joined by late cover from Sparta’s Dan and Marco, for an impeccable standard of refereeing. Final thanks to Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Holness for their fixturing, commentating and potential trouble-shooting.

United: Zeid, Nemer, Danny, Daniel, Oscar, Travis, Nicolas, Zayd and Oliver R.

Town: Yusuf B, Danny G, Aaron, Oliver P, Iyad, Yusuf A, Marcus, Isa, Callum.

Rovers: Mohamad, Ali, Yousif, Aiden, Fouad, Quinn, Finn, Jonah, Karim, Rikhil, Amir.