Thursday 29th September - Y6 EFC Football Festival - written by Mr McGorian
Date: 3rd Oct 2016 @ 11:57am
Our fantastic start to the 2016/17 season continued on Thursday as our team managed to win the Everton Fun Festival at Prescot and with it, earn a place in the Regional Finals at Finch Farm.
After 3 wins in our Halewood league, the boys were confident of more success but were also aware that Thursday could prove more difficult as there were over twenty teams in attendance from all over Knowsley. To reach the semi-finals, only group winners from all four groups could progress and Plantation got off to a great start, beating local rivals St. Marks and Yew Tree (scoring 10 goals without reply). The third match saw the clean sheets continue as we ran out 5-0 winners over West Vale. The final match was the group decider against Northwood who also had a 100% record. Plantation raced into a 3-0 lead but had to show real determination and resilience after being pegged back to 3-2. Thankfully, with the pressure piling up, a late goal sealed a 4-2 win and, with it, qualification into the semi-finals.
Incredibly, those 2 goals were the first 2 that Plantation had conceded in 8 games this season – reflecting the consistency of our goalkeeper Josh and the hard work of Nathan, Matty, Riley and Luke who have all played in front of him this season. At the other end of the pitch, goals continue to flood in with huge contributions from Louie, Joe S, Joe T and Curtis, all of whom have been on the scoresheet regularly this season. A through ball from Luke to Joe T will already take some beating for assist of the season! Harley, meanwhile, continues to be a driving force in midfield and he showed brilliant awareness throughout this tournament – dropping in and covering in defence when he needed to, as well as keeping the ball moving in midfield.
In the semi-finals, we were pitted against an old rival in St. Laurence’s. A tight game was settled by another goal from Joe S (his tenth of the tournament at that point), setting up a final with Malvern in a repeat of last season’s Echo Shield quarter final. Like last year’s fixture this was another tight affair and looked like it might also go to penalties. However, Josh had other ideas and decided to put Plantation in the lead, scoring from his own goal! If that wasn’t enough, he greedily grabbed himself an assist too, finding Joe S with a long clearance that he managed to flick straight in (and even had the nerve to say it was deliberate). The boys then turned in a brilliant defensive performance to keep another clean sheet and now head to Finch Farm.
Player of the tournament was a tough decision but with 11 goals in 6 games, and playing through an injury, the award goes to Joe S (even if he is claiming to have meant his final fluke goal).
As always, the team were a credit to the school and we thank those who managed to find the time to come and cheer us on, too. Well done!
Everyone at Plantation Primary would like to thank Mr McGorian for giving up his time to take the children to this competition.
