Under 10's Perform Well in Guernsey Rothschild Tournament

Congratulations to the U10 team on their success in Guernsey.

The St Pauls U10 team were again involved in the annual Guernsey Mini Soccer Festival. They were pooled in group A, (arguably the harder of the two groups) along with Wanderers and Grouville from Jersey and Northeners, Vale rec and Sylvans from Guernsey. Also in our group were St Annes of Alderney, Corinthians from London and the two pro clubs Everton and Glasgow Rangers.

As you can see the boys would be up against it and at 11.00am it began, badly. The boys didn`t adapt to the larger pitch and found themselves a goal down, try as they might they were unable to respond and lost by that single goal to St Annes.

They responded to that defeat brilliantly with wins against Wanderers and Grouville 1-0 and 2-0 respectively, goals coming from Aaron, Kealan and Michael. This set us up for the first of our games against the pro sides, Rangers. The boys offered stiff resistance right from the start and as they settled began to create chances of their own. The first half finished goalless, the second period was similar to the first except the crowd grew and grew in anticipation of an upset, the upset never came in the shape of a win, but the boys earned themselves a point with the majority of the crowd suggesting we may have deserved all three.

We were commended by the Glaswegians on our football who had nothing but positive comments, this was indeed a very proud moment for all associated with St Pauls FC.

We now had the task of bringing the boys back to planet earth for our next matches, both against Guernsey opposition, Vale rec and Sylvans. The boys managed two 1-0 wins, a second goal from Kealan and another by Luca. But the team was tiring by the minute and our fifth game of the afternoon proved to be one too many, especially with the opposition being the second of the two pro sides, Everton. The boys tried as hard as they could but were unable to repeat the earlier performance against the top flight team and suffered an undeserving 3-0 defeat.

A trip to the famous Crabbi Jacks restaurant on Saturday evening helped raise moral ( although getting up at 6.00am for an 8.00am KO dampened spirits again), the boys overcame this and secured a 2-0 lead against their last Guernsey side the Northeners with a superb free kick going in the top corner from around 20yds by Luca and a cute volley from the tightest of angles from Ben, and although they did reply it was not enough to deprive the boys their fifth victory and a place in the shield. The last game in the group stage was a hard fought 0-0 draw against the eventual runners up of the plate, Corinthians.

We all watched the group B table develop as we were to play the second place team, Arsenal were to be our quarter finalists for the second year running ( we lost 1-0 to them last year).

The game was to be played on pitch 4, a pitch we had not been beaten on and the same one we gained the 0-0 draw the day before against Rangers.

The boys started the game confidently and took the game to the premier side, we defended well but they broke down one of our attacks and in typical Arsenal style scored on the break, 1-0 at half time and we had it all to do in the second, we huffed and puffed but they would not let us blow a hole in them and as we threw everything at them they again broke away to score a second with the last kick of another superb match to which St Pauls contributed so much.

So with that our tournament ended, but how the boys reacted was to make the coaching staff of St Pauls U10s as proud as ever, they showed such grace and understanding as to what they had in fact achieved.They paid little attention to the fact that teams who had not faired as well were still involved in the tournement ( the plate ).

The coaches involved would like to say thank you to the boys who made us proud in Guernsey, to the parents who have supported the boys and St Pauls FC during the last year and at the fund raising events and to any other people who have donated time, money and in most cases both, thank you very much and good luck to those leaving us for the U12 or any other teams.

  Thanks again Peter, Neil, Chris and Rob