The Congleton College suffer
last-minute heartbreak in first ever game
The Congleton
College’s Football Academy played their eagerly awaited opening match in the
English Colleges category three league on Wednesday afternoon.
The team
have only been training for a few weeks and suffered a narrow defeat away at
Macclesfield Football Academy after a late comeback by the Silkmen.
Daniel
Needham’s hat-trick looked as though it would be enough to secure Congleton a
perfect start to the season. It looked even more likely after Macclesfeld were
reduced to 10-men on 85 minutes after Callum Duffield was sent-off for an
aggressive tackle.
However,
Macclesfield scored two goals in the last five minutes to comeback from trailing
3-2 to secure all three points. The winning goal was with the last attack of
the game and was at a time when Congleton were also reduced to 10-men as
Needham was off the pitch receiving treatment.
Despite the
result, manager Mr Donnelly, who also works part-time at Stoke City, saw a
number of positives from Congleton’s first ever match: “I was really, really
gutted for the lads but I was happy with the performance. I think we were the
better team technically but at times we were pushed off the ball too easily. We
have got to expect that when playing college football. It was a learning curve
and we are now looking forward to the next game.”
The BTEC Level
3 Diploma in Performance and Excellence course is in its first year at
Congleton College and allows students to combine their studies with a high
standard of football training along with a chance to represent The Congleton
College in the English Colleges League. There is also an opportunity for
students to complete their Level 1 FA coaching badge and complete a work placement
in Stoke City’s community department.
The course only launched three
weeks ago and the players are going to have to adapt from high school football
to men’s category three which Mr Donnelly said is “very physical and
demanding.”
Mr Donnelly
added that he believes each student can get a variety of things out of the
course. “The main thing that we hope to achieve is helping students to develop
as footballers and learning new things.”
The college
has links with Stoke City and the course is running on the same model as the
Premier League club, with academy players gaining exactly the same experiences
as those on a scholarship with a professional club.
Exciting
things are planned for the course in the future including a new pitch and
improved training facilities over the next few years and this is going to be
necessary if they are going to compete with other providers of football academy schemes.
If you are
interested and want to find out more please contact Mrs March (Director of
Post-16 at Congleton High School) at WMarch@CongletonHigh.com.
Written by Adam Bailey