OPENING ROUNDS OF ESFA CUP- September 2014

Opening Rounds of the English School’s Cup

It has been a mixed start to the English School’s Cup for Congleton High School’s teams. Following the year 9 boys comeback which saw them beat St Thomas More last week, year 7 boys and the under 16 girls both joined year 9 in the next round this week. However, year 11 boys will not be going any further in the national tournament.

Year 7 play 9-a-side on a smaller pitch and they started with a 1-0 win away at Woodhouse Academy last week and now face an away tie at Ormiston Horizon Academy [Stoke-on-Trent] in the next round.

The Year 11 boys were hoping to pick-up where they left off last season in the English School’s Cup when they reached the last 32 before losing 4-1 to Range High School. They started their cup campaign this year away at Tythrington High School on Wednesday. Mr Donnelly would have been hoping for a repeat of when the two teams met last November in the Cheshire Cup when a dominant CHS won 4-1. On that occasion, the scores were level after the opening half. However CHS found themselves trailing 2-1 at half-time, this time around, but with only one goal in it everyone knew the game was still anybody’s. However, Tythrington added another three after half-time with CHS only managing to add one. A 5-2 defeat saw CHS leave the competition at the first time of asking.

The girls have fared well in the English School’s Cup in recent years with the under 15 girls last year reaching the national semi-final and with the girls now competing at a higher age group than last year, hopes are still high about their chances this year. The under 16 girls started their cup campaign away at Flixton Girls’ School in Trafford and triumphed in a hard fought 7-5 victory. Goalkeeper, Chloe Tatton impressed on her debut in goal and Amy Rodgers was different class scoring five goals.

CHS found themselves 4-3 down at half-time with CHS’ first half goals coming from Beth Jones and two from Amy Rodgers. Rodgers added a second half hat-trick to her brace from the first half and Poppy Jones also got on the score sheet which secured a 7-5 victory and a place in the next round. The girls are still waiting to find out who will be their next opponents.

The year 9 boys will play Audenshaw School from Tameside at home tomorrow (Monday 22^nd September) in round two of the competition and there will be a match report on the blog later tomorrow night. They came back from losing 3-1 at half-time to win 5-4 on penalties in the last round (full match report below).

This week also sees the opening week of league fixtures with all years battling it out against Alsager.

Written by Adam Bailey