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On Saturday 17th July, the hawks entered a squad in the Barton Rovers 6-a-side tournament. A day when once again the Sun shone but the Football Gods were not on our side.
There were three divisions at U11 and we were in group A. The other teams in our group were.
Two Barton Rovers sides.
Eldon Celtic.
Purley Jubilee.
Whitley Panthers.
Teams in other groups included; Kestrels Whites, Theale Tigers, Meadway, Westwood Wanderers and Reading Rangers. So basically all the best U11 sides in the area.
During the group stages, we never lost a game. All draws and a win. Group winners were Eldon Celtic and second was Barton Rovers A side.
We drew 1-1 with Celtic. We went a goal up courtesy of a lovely Right foot strike from Sam Maguire. The Celtic equalizer was so lucky. Celtic shot and Daniel Maker had the shot covered as he dived to the right, the ball deflected of Jake Harrison’s knee into the left hand corner. There is no doubt Daniel would have saved easily.
Against Barton Rovers A side, it was a case of them not hardly entering our half, we dominated the game, but our striking duo of Reece Ward and James Budgeon couldn’t have bought a goal today. The score ended 0-0.
Probably the easier side in the group was Purley Jubilee. We drew 0-0 due to their keeper playing a blinder, this should have been our banker game for a win. With goals counting for points, our lack of scoring could cost us dearly. With a game to go, it was obvious we were not going through in the main competition. One more win from the earlier drawn games would have been enough!
There was still hope of going through to the consolation. The best and second best third placed side from all the combined leagues went through. All we had to do was win our last game with goals. Hawks did this with style, beating Barton Rovers B 3-0.
Two goals from Matthew Panter, who was absolutely superb on the day and the other from Jake Harrison.
Then the long wait: was our points tally good enough to be one of the best placed third teams? Answer? Easily. The nearest other 3rd placed team had 12 points and we had 17. As I said earlier one more win instead of a draw would have seen us through to the main competition semi final.
So the semi final. Who did we draw? You guessed it; Barton rovers A side. The Hawks were on a high though, just won our last game 3-0, all over them in our league game, we had a real chance of making the final. 10 minutes one way; and that’s what it was; all one way; our way. We dominated the game; Rovers weren’t even in it; yet we lost. Rovers came in our half twice, once forced a great save from Daniel Maker from a potential own goal. The other they scored. A Rover came through one on one with Daniel and beat him, and despite a fantastic effort from Daniel Golder the ball crawled across the line and we were one down, our first goal conceded in the whole tournament.
The Hawks battled for the equaliser, everyone pushed forward. With minutes to go we won a free kick just outside the box. Sam Maguire struck it beautifully and the ball smacked the bar on the rebound I think James hit the ball or the ball hit James and the ball hit the bar again!
Finally the ref blew for the end of the game. One goal conceded all day and we were on our way home. Barton Rovers cheered their victory, but it must have been a hollow victory, we were clearly the better side. On the day however they scored one and we scored none. So well done Barton. (Always our bogey side). Don’t know who won because we all went home thinking of what could have been. Good tournament though and thanks to Barton Rovers.
Squad:
Daniel Maker:
Jake Harrison:
Daniel Golder:
Sam Maguire:
Matthew Panter:
Lewis Robinson:
Reece Ward:
James Budgeon:
