New finalists at football competitions

There was a great turn out for the South Cambs round of the English Schools FA football competitions held on Tuesday 16th October at Impington Village College. The event for Under-11 7-a-side school teams included three separate competitions; small schools, girl’s and large schools with a total of 40 school teams battling it out for one of the three titles on offer.

All three competitions were played in a round robin format with schools playing all of the other teams in their pool. The top teams from each pool then qualified for the final to determine the winners.

In the small schools competition, for schools with fewer than 120 pupils in Key Stage 2, it was extremely competitive with a high standard of football throughout. In fact there was not much to separate the top few teams in each pool but with 3 wins and 2 draws a piece it was reigning champions and last year’s national finalists Meldreth and first time finalists Oakington that went through to the final. It was a close matched final with the score at 1-1 for a long period before Oakington took the lead and then held on until the final whistle to claim the winners shield for the first time.

Twelve teams battled it out in the girls’ competition with the teams from Histon & Impington Juniors and Swavesey Primary finishing top of the two groups and both going through to the final undefeated. The stage was set for an exciting final in what was a rematch of the previous year’s final. It was a closely fought final with Histon & Impington seeking revenge from last year’s defeat with victory and title of South Cambs champiosn for the 4th time.

There was a record entry of 16 teams into the 7-a-side competition for large schools so teams were organised into a round robin of 4 pools. Winning their groups were the teams from Hatton Park, Bassingbourn, Histon & Impington Juniors and Milton with the latter two both securing 3 wins from 3. Nothing could separate the teams in the semi-finals though with both matches going to the dreaded penalty shoot-out! Winning the battle of the nerves were the teams from Milton & Bassingbourn. The final was an end to end affair but it was Milton who came out on top with a 1-0 victory and won the trophy the title of South Cambs Champions for the first time.

The winners and runners up in each competition will now go onto to represent South Cambs in the County Finals in February where they will compete against the winners from the other districts for the chance to qualify for the ESFA regional finals.

Claire McDonnell, Partnership Manager, said “The event was a great success. We were delighted with the number of entries this year, although it did make it tricky to fit in all of the matches. We had 400 children taking part on a lovely sunny day, it was a real festival of football with games played in a friendly but competitive spirit and it was nice to see some different schools getting through to the finals this year.

Of course we must thank Impington Village College for hosting the event again this year and the Cambridge United football scholars from Cambridge Regional College who did a fantastic job in refereeing all of the matches with real authority and confidence.”

ESFA Football Full Results 2018