Before the completion had even started we had all ready made Brockwell history as we had never had a girl’s football team before. After several weeks of football training it was finally time to go to the Chesterfield girl’s football finals. We arrived at Hasland school with plenty of time to spare and began our own warm up drills. It was lead by a young boy who was working towards his PE exams. He thought we were great! Once all the teams had arrived we began the tournament. Our first match was against Staveley but we were already nervous because we had seen the standard of Staveley’s skills when we warmed up near them. Stavely won the toss up and took the centre. The game begun and Staveley passed to their best player. Lucy tackled them and then passed to Megan. She had a shot but unfortunately missed. It was their goal kick. She booted it over to their best player who was on our side of the pitch. Their best player took an incredible shot and she scored. Sadly, we couldn’t score the equaliser. The game ended Stavely 1- Brockwell nil.
We were very excited when our second match was announced because we were playing the Brockwell Beavers, our friends and training partners. Our Beavers had the upper hand because they were kicking off. Before long, Lucy had tackled their player and was speeding forward with the ball. Their keeper was ready for action as she knew what Lucy was like. Lucy was so quick with the ball she SLAMMED it in and GOAL! Like last time they started with the advantage of the ball. This time it was them who sped forwards with Libby on the ball. Libby took an amazing shot towards the goal but Lucy saved the ball from going into the net and it was still 1-0 to us. Lucy was tackling here and there and eventually had a shot but unfortunately she had missed by an inch. It was a goal kick from Alice (their goal keeper) she booted it to one of their players. Lucy tackled her and got the ball. Three seconds later, Lucy was dribbling the ball all the way past the defenders and with one tap of the ball it went straight through the goalie’s legs and straight into the back of the net. 2 nil to us with about 30 seconds left finally the whistle blew. What a relief! One game won!
After regrouping, we were then informed that our 3rd opponents would be Hady on pitch 2. Although it had started to drizzle we didn’t really notice as we were just so excited to be playing football and delighted to have got our first win. We took our positions as Hady came onto the pitch. We got off to an amazing start. In the first 30 seconds, Lucy dribbled around the defenders to take a powerful shot at the goal …. and she scored!! Around 2 minutes later, another amazing 2 goals were scored by the Brockwell Badgers. Unbelievably our goal keeper booted the ball up the other end of the pitch. We were on fire! But then Lucy, scored another 2 goals. WOW! This could be a great turn out for the Badgers. Hady raced the ball towards our goal but our great defence managed to intercept and kick it to the other end of the pitch. With our attackers picking up the ball, we smashed it into the back of the net again. The game ended with great sportsmanship and cheers for both teams. 6-0 to Brockwell, we were delighted.
With two wins under our belt we were feeling much more confident and determined to keep doing well. After taking our positions to find out who our next game was against. We made our way over to pitch 2 to get ready for the whistle to blow. Old Hall joined us on the pitch. Old hall began with great determination. Lucy, the teams best striker managed to score a goal in the first 5 minute, but it was a tough battle. Olivia, our goal keeper, passed to Liberty at the half way line, Liberty then passed to Abi and Abi managed to place the ball into the back of the net. GOAL! The final score was 2-0 to Brockwell. The referee blew the whistle and the match was over, leaving Brockwell as the winning team. We shook hands with the girl’s from Old Hall and congratulated them. We then shook hands with the referee.
We were becoming more and more successful in this competition that we had never entered before and most of us had not even played properly. We only had one team left to play and that was Brampton. With 3 wins and one loss we felt that the silver certificates could be ours.
Brampton kicked off from the centre and the match started. At the start, both sides were battling to get a goal in until a Brampton player took a shot outside of the area. Luckily, Olivia who was the keeper, made a tremendous save to make it a corner for Brampton. Brampton was ready and took the corner quickly. A Brampton attacker booted at the target, but luckily for us, it hit the post. The match carried on with the ball going into their half and then into our half. Then our luck was in, Megan crossed the ball to Lucy who then ran up the right wing and put the ball through the legs of the keeper. GOAL! Lucy had done it, she put Brockwell Junior school in front of Brampton.
There was all to play for after the goal. Brampton took the centre once more and made a run for the semi-circle. They took many throw-ins but couldn’t get it past our goalkeeper Olivia. Brockwell were passing the ball up and down the pitch trying to get the ball in the back of the net but Brampton were determined and kept blocking and tackling the ball from us.
Brockwell were working as a team passing the ball up the field. Lucy was skilling around the players until she managed to get a one on one goalkeeper opportunity to take it to 2 nil for Brockwell. Lucy took that chance and struck it into the bottom left hand corner of the net. GOAL! Lucy scored again and made Brockwell 2 nil up. There was more competitive football-ing until the referee blew the whistle. Game over. Brockwell 2-Brampton nil.
So with 4 wins and a loss we just need to see how Stavely had done in the rest of their games. The moment had come. The leaders from Hasland read out the scores in reverse order. In 6th place was Hady, Brockwell Beavers came 5th with Old Hall taking 4th place. Within minutes we found out that Brampton were the winners of the Bronze Certificate. We were all so relieved that our team had not yet been called out. But we still kept our fingers crossed. Then it was called out that Staveley had come in second place which meant that we had won! We were all so shocked but that didn’t stop us from screaming in delight. W really were the first girl’s football team to win gold. We were handed the gold medals and the trophy. We were over the moon to complete the event we had our photograph taken before playing a friendly game. It was fun playing against the team we lost to but this time we beat them. We are all so happy that we gave girl’s football a go and entered the competition as it gave us some amazing experiences and some great memories.