The Charter School

 

The Charter’s first match of the season got off to a flying start as soon as the whistle had been blown. In the opening 5 minutes a quick exchange of fiery and tough challenges set the game up to be a really hard-fought contest. But soon Charter started to dominate all over the pitch. The mid-field three of Paul, Troy and Harrison broke down much of Sacred Heart’s possession and they were easily able to offload many brilliant passes cutting up the opposition’s defence. That is how we scored our first goal. It came early in the first half when Jimmy used his excellent quick feet and mature footballing brain to send the ball down the line where left-winger Hamido greeted it with a kiss – sending it flying into the bottom right corner of the net. Solid work from the Charter defence helped keep our momentum going. Again, 5 minutes later, Jimmy won the ball off a defender and sent it exquisitely over the top of the defence where Hamido was waiting, beating two players on his way to his second goal. Sacred Heart managed to pull one back and had a minor spray of attacks. But as the game went on, you could easily tell that Charter were more confident in their approach to the game. In the last attack of the half, finished with a touch of sheer class, left-back Keyarno managed to put in a stern, strong tackle to win the ball back for Charter and in one movement, striking it down the wing where again it was time for Hamido to shine. Running on, one-on-one, and calmly slotting the ball into the net to round off a superb hat-trick.

 

In the second half, we got off to a surge of attacks bombarding down the flanks and using right-winger Kiere’s pace to our advantage constantly accelerating past the full-backs and driving some low and hard crosses dangerously across their box. Ten minutes later, a cross came in narrowly missing the end of Max’s foot but Paul had seen the chance and was there to calmly tap the ball into the net. Even though Charter had the advantage, Sacred Heart never gave up constantly putting the defence, Fintan, Keyarno, Josh and Devonne under huge amounts of pressure and forcing Michael to make some experienced saves. Sacred Heart intercepted a wayward pass and latched on to it to score their second goal making it 4-2. More waves of Sacred Heart attacks came thick and fast. They scored from a penalty to make it 4-3 putting the game on a knife edge for all the spectators and players. Entering the final period of the game, Charter started to regain their strong mentality and then it came – the final goal with just 3 minutes to go. An absolutely fantastic solo effort from Paul, weaving his way through sliding challenges – moving the ball from side to side he managed to get the one-on-one opportunity he deserved. Firing the ball calmly and coolly to round off a fantastic match of football.

 

Mr Smith’s Man of The Match was Harrison – his phenomenal and faultless positioning and his cool and calm interceptions put him at the top of the pile. Considering he did not have a knee cap when he joined the Charter, a personal and positive performance demonstrating his commitment to overcome challenges. A brilliant day for the Charter football team that I am sure will be cloned many times over. By Josh Thomas

 

Due to the large turnout at Year 7 football trials, a Year 7 B-team has been set up with training every Friday with over 25 boys turning up every week, run by Mr Manning, Mr Spaul and myself. They have already played in a 5 aside tournament at the City of London Academy, where the boys were the only B side to participate. Despite not winning any of their games they gave a really strong account of themselves against high quality opposition and were certainly not embarrassed with all of the games being very tightly contested. The boys are likely to have an 11 aside fixture in the near future.