Under 9’s on the spot for Cup win

A glorious sunny morning at Barry’s Field for the under 9’s Oak Cup Final and for once there seemed to be no cold wind - luxury!

The team arrived knowing it would be a tough match given the previous meeting between them and the visitors Bishops Waltham with Waltham edging that game in an 11-goal thriller.
The first quarter started off badly with a Bishops Waltham corner forcing an unfortunate own goal on two minutes.

The team regrouped and started to pass the ball around and just before the quarter break, Gene Dunn picked the ball up and passed it to Carlos Campbell who cut inside round two players and netted to make it 1-1.

Quarter 2 saw BW force an early corner and again the ball hit a Clarendon player for a second own goal.
The Whites could have gone further behind when a clear handball led to a penalty to the opponents. The Ref blew his whistle but luckily for Clarendon the shot went high and wide of the target.
The third quarter was end to end but with one only one clear chance which saw a BW free kick turned on to the bar. Without any further goals Whites remained 2-1 down going into the last quarter.

The team kept battling and a through ball from Kaleb Scriven was picked up by Stanley Knight who advanced forward and drilled home a fine shot from the edge of the area.
The last 5 minutes saw some heroic defending to send the tie to a penalty shoot-out.
Gene Dunn donned the goalie gloves for the shoot out, but it was Juniors who took the first kick.
Dominic Pike netted his penalty which was matched by BW’s, Carlos Campbell fired his penalty in off the left hand post before Gene dived to his left to block BW’s second kick to keep it 2-1.
That left the reliable Charlie Maryon to take his penalty with the voices of encouragement from his teammates and the parents on the sideline.

Taking 5 steps up he shot the ball to the keepers right and the net bulged to make it a 3-1 on penalties.
Overall a great effort from the whole team and the players of the match went to Stanley Knight and Kydon Broderick for running themselves into the grounds
The team thanked the formidable opponents during the presentation ceremony, who we happen to be playing next Saturday in the league.