Sheffield United Community Foundation Y3/4 Mixed Tournament

Wednesday 26th February at St George's Park Westfield-Isobel Bowler Sports Ground

 On Wednesday 26th February, our Y4 team went to play Football in the Sheffield United Community Foundation’s Mixed Cup at the Isobel Bowler Sports Centre. 

Our team consisted of players from J4, J5 and J6 who were:

Eva, Lucy-Laura, Etienne, Eli, Thomas, Jet, Will, Zayan and Jamal.  

We arrived at 12:00pm but as the tournament kicked off at 1:10pm, we had time to have our lunch and talk tactics. Mrs. Hersey put us into four different formations and positions to be used throughout the tournament, as we agreed we wouldn’t substitute (swap in and out) during the games. This also meant players got a chance to play in different positions, not just their favourite position.

(2 of the formations we used)

  

There were 2 groups and over 20 teams. We played on the bottom pitch and had 11 rounds in total but we only played 8 games. The games were 8 minutes long but because of the weather (Hail, snow, wind and some sun at times!) some games were shortened to 5 minutes. 

In our first game, we won 2-0 against Monteney with Eli grabbing the first goal of the tournament. The second game was against Portercroft with a final score of 4-0. The third game was against Nethergreen Juniors. Thomas scored an amazing volley driving out from defence on our corner to help us win 6-0. We would have loved to keep the pattern going and win 8-0 but this was a much tougher game against Arbourthorne but we managed to come back from 1-0 down to win 2-1. Group stage games:

1. vs Monteney 1-0 win

2. vs Portercroft 4-0 win

3. vs Nethergreen 6-0 win

4. vs Arbourthorne 2-1 win

5. No game

6. vs Birley Spa 6-0 win

7. vs Sparken Hill 7-0 win

8. No game

9. vs Springfield 2-0 win

10. vs Emmaus 1-0 win

11. vs Valley Park B (forfeited game) 1-0 win. 

After winning all our group stage games, we had to get ready for the quarterfinals. Our quarterfinal opponents were Valley Park. We started to feel nervous, especially the people on the bench, but Jet scored the first goal to settle our nerves. Once we had the first goal we didn’t look back and won the game 6-0.

In the semi-finals we faced Birley Primary. Nearly straight from the start Etienne got the ball on the wing, pretended to pass to Zayan and was able to get past the defender with this piece of skill. This allowed him to get a shot on target, which went high into the roof of the net. We had to defend for the rest of the game but managed to do this very well, winning 1-0. 

The quarter final and semi-final games were 5 minutes, but we were told the final game would be for 20 minutes! For the final as a team, we agreed that we would use substitutes to make it fair as different people played the whole game for the quarters and semi-finals. We found out our opponents in the final game would be Norfolk. 

The game started with us conceding two early goals. It was a bit of a shock based on our performances in previous games but due to a mix-up, we had one player off the pitch at the start of the game. We managed to pull a goal back and then Eva scored an impressive equalising goal, bringing the score to 2-2 and lifting the team’s spirits. Half time! Encouragement from Mrs Hersey and fresh legs also brought with them goals and we ran out eventual winners with a 7-2 score line.

We scored 44 goals and conceded 3 throughout the whole tournament giving us a goal difference of 41! In addition, we were the only unbeaten team throughout the tournament, which was a fantastic achievement!

Eli was given player of the tournament by Mrs Hersey for his performances and for giving up his chance to play upfront in the final to help sort out the mix-up slotting into defence to help the team.

We would like to thank all the parents and Mrs Hersey for all their support and we’re definitely looking forward to the next one.