Wargrave Festival

This was the third tournament of the Summer for the Shinfield U9 Girls team. However they went into the Wargrave Festival without having scored any goals or winning any of the eight matches played in the Tilehurst or Summertown tournaments, although they had been playing some good football but while not conceding many they had failed to find the net themselves. This was soon to change with the first game of the Wargrave Festival against Tilehurst Panthers saw Lola find the back of the net early on and the team hold on for a hard earned 1-0 win against a very good Tilehurst team.

The second game against the first of the Wargrave teams saw some clinical finishing from the girls, with two goals from Lola and further strikes from Chloe and Casey seeing the girls to 4-1 win – the goal conceded being an unluckily deflected own goal past our keeper.

With 7 players in a 5-a-side event there was much rotation of the team for the third group game against the other Wargrave team. This was a fairly even contest, but the girls were unfortunate to lose 1-0 , with a defensive mix-up leading to the only goal.

The semi-final saw the girls up against Tilehurst again.  This was an end-to-end contest, with Tilehurst failing to capitalise on the many corners they won. However, with neither team able to score the inevitable penalties followed. After Casey’s penalty swerved just wide, Hannah in goal was just unable to stop the first Tilehurst penalty. However, with Lola making no mistake and the next Tilehurst penalty hitting the post, Hannah slammed home the final spot kick and then saved the final Tilehurst effort to put Shinfield into the final.

The final against Wargrave saw strong performances from all the girls, with Hannah unbeatable in goal, Ellie and Emma each in turn strong in defence, Casey and Lola battling for everything in midfield and Chloe and then Jasmine at the end, producing strong running up front. There were only a couple of minutes left on the clock when Lola’s low shot into the bottom corner from outside the area gave the girls an unexpected and hard-earned first tournament success to end a fantastic day for the girls.

Reported by Brian Strange (Manager)