We arrived early and parked the car in the big fields, thinking that the tournament would be on the grass next to the car park. But when we got a little closer, we could see that the matches would be played inside the Northwood FC stadium –exciting !

It was a boiling hot day, and Oscar was telling us all the time to take on lots of water and liquid. As I stepped onto the pitch for the first match, we could all feel the hot sun on our face, but it was great, and we played well and won the first match 1-0 – that was a good start !
We were then a little unlucky in the next two matches, drawing and losing, but overall we played well.

We then got into the Plate Final, which was a close and exciting match, ending in a draw. It went to a penalty shoot-out, like lots of England matches do in tournaments sometimes. I took the second penaly and that was the only penalty that we scored. My team mates were unlucky with theirs. We didn’t win the trophy but we did do very well for our first tournament.

In the future I know we will do very well in them because we got a great team and excellent coach, that will take us to lots of victories. I can’t wait to be the proud captian and to lift the trophy very soon.

By Vincent Benedict, Under 9’s
7th May 2016