The U11 Girls Football Team made the long journey to Platt Lane in Manchester, and came home with the AJIS U11 Girls’ Football Cup!
The girls started the day as they meant to go on, with a 4-0 statement win against Birkenhead with superb goals coming from Alexa, Emily and Jasmine. A 1-0 goal thanks to a late Alexa goal secured a 1-0 win against Bury in the next, beating the two other best teams in the group early doors with two fantastic performances. Comfortable 2-0 victories vs St Bedes and KGS followed to secure 1st place in Group B, amazingly with 0 goals conceded thanks to a combination of stoic defending from Sophia, Ava, Esme and Libby, and a superb goalkeeping showing from Isla.
In the semi finals, we faced our biggest challenge yet. 1-0 down with two minutes to play against two-time tournament winners CHS, the girls pulled their socks up and scored a last ditch equaliser through Jasmine to take the game to penalties. Jasmine, Alexa and Emily all scored their penalties as Cheadle’s third taker stepped up with Isla in the goal. The penalty was struck furiously, but Isla tipped it onto the crossbar with a superb save and AKS were guaranteed a medal and into the AJIS final.
The Grange School waited for us in the final, fresh off winning two tournaments recently. However, AKS were laser focused. Early in the match, Alexa snaked past 3 players on the half way line before slipped an inch-perfect pass to Jasmine who made no mistake, making it 1-0 to AKS. It would have been easy to sit on the lead and defend, however another lovely ball through from the defence found Emily, cross the ball to Jasmine who finished brilliantly again. We then defended superbly for the last two minutes and as the final whistle went, AKS were deservedly champions.
All of the squad were a credit to the school all day with amazing attitudes and performances. When things got difficult, they helped out their team mates and were the best team on the day- huge congratulations to all!
Match report - Mr Fraser Grey