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'Butlins 2011 ESFF Champions"

What a weekend. Now I don't want to upset anyone's religious beliefs here, and if you believe in God then He exists. End of. Personally, I don't know, but one thing I do know is if He does exist, then He was surely smiling upon the girls this weekend. It simply could not have worked out more perfect than it did.

We entered the tournament with probably a sneaking feeling that the girls were at least capable of giving the event a good shot. Clearly, there is no disputing their obvious talent and as they were to demonstrate during the weekend, their technical capability was on a different level to all others with perhaps West Ham United being the only other team with the same number of technical players. But, as in life, we probably knew that we needed a slice of luck along the way if the girls were to lift the trophy on Sunday evening.

The idea to have a pre tournament get together on Friday evening at Stuarts was a winner, because that gave us the chance to concentrate some minds. We drilled into them our ABC (attitude, belief and confidence) and talked over the event. I doubt many other teams did this. Equally, the Saturday morning walk was a winner, just to get the girls out early, some sea air, and a bit of pre tournament bonding. Paige pikied some bling ring, so we returned to base camp with a Brucey Bonus to boot. Hurrah!

Saturday morning's draw was tricky with an opening tie against West Ham. Stu and I had a good pre match talk with the girls and told them to play the opponent and not the reputation. In hindsight, we should probably have mentioned this about 15 minutes earlier, because it took that long for the girls to listen. Unfortunately by then, West Ham scored one and threatened to run riot as we struggled to get into our game. And then The Amighty smiled for the first time. West Ham hit the post and we managed to clear the danger. Half time. 1-0.

To be fair to the girls,  and I can't remember what we said at half time, but the girls went back out onto the pitch and turned in a performance that looked like the teams had swapped shirts at half time. We huffed and puffed and battered their goalmouth but just couldn't get a deserved equaliser. West Ham knew they were in a scrap as each time the ball went out, they wasted as much time a they could to return the ball into play but it wasn't to be. Final whistle, and handshakes all round by their coaching staff as they had dispatched the plucky little team from the West Country. They even organised a joint team photo, which was a nice touch, probably to show all their big friends in London what a cute little team we were.

Match 2. Our new best friends in Deeping Diamonds. I can't remember a great deal about this one except that we won 3-0 with Paige getting 2 and Leah the other one. I do remember that the girls maintained their high tempo 2nd half performance in the first match as we pretty much handed out a footballing lesson to Deeping. 

Match 3 was against Starlands from the Midlands somewhere. Memorable most because both of our goals from Chloe and Leah were headers from corners both taken by Maisie. However much tournament football you watch this summer, I doubt you will see many headed goals from corners, but we had worked on our corners and the girls knew instinctively what was happening. For the uninitiated, Maisie's corners were high, and Leah's were low and hard, the classic daisy cutter. In between each goal, we had a 2nd heavenly smile as Karin saved a penalty to keep our goal difference strong.

Match 4 was against Wyrely Girls. In somewhat ironic footballing terms, we hammered them 1-0 as Paige got her third goal of the tournament following a swift total team goal, swivelling in front of the keeper to leave her bewildered as the ball was stroked past her into the goal. Most memorable moment for me in his one was Rocky's free kick which was like a torpedo and rattled the post. I do afford myself a secret smile when we get a free kick and some naive defender decides to stand 10 yards from Rocky as she lines one up. Coaching manual says yes, Accident and Emergency says no.

Celestial smile number 3 then happened as at the same time, West Ham lost their first match of the tournament, which meant we finished the day in 2nd place only on goal difference to Starlands. It also meant that in Day 1 we played all other teams in the top 4 with an apparently easier day ahead on Sunday.

Match 5 was against Ashfordby B. Bit of a mis-match as the girls ran out deserved 9-0 victors with goalscorers Chloe x 3, Danielle x 3, Paige, Maisie and Rocky. Lots of very good goals in this one, Chloe's 2nd from a quick corner routine with Maisie, Maisie's top corner screamer and Rocky's turbo screamer. And with sincere apologies to Danielle, but when the keeper smacks the ball against your face from a couple of feet and it ends up in the back of the net, you kind of get the feeling that luck is on your side. And that for her hat trick! Well done girl. (Smile number 5). I was willing Billie's first time effort to hit the net after a very good team move but it wasn't to be as the ball just went the wrong side of the post. What I also liked about this game was the girls eagerness to get the ball back into play after we scored, as we discussed the importance of needing to score a hatful against Ashfordby. No one standing around for photos, just a will to pick the ball out of the net and put it back on the centre spot for them to kick off again.

Match 6 was against Arnold Town. I don't think Karin touched the ball in this game as Arnold played pretty much 5 at the back, so a 0-0 was probably the most likely result, despite the girls best efforts. Rocky got injured, Maisie done her ankle and for a moment it was like a scene from The Somme as a very impressive Grace became the dominant defender alongside Billie. The 2 points dropped could have cost us dear but, with West Ham drawing 0-0 at the same time, the tournament was set up for a last game decider, as we faced Ashfordby A and West Ham the B equivalents. Another smile.

Stuart and I put all of our fingers together to count up the goal difference going into the last game which we worked out saw us with a +7 advantage over West Ham, but with them facing the tournaments weakest side, we had to score goals. We started nervously but got our noses in front through another Rocky screamer for a 1-0 half time lead. After Chloe put us further in front, the girls relaxed a bit and looked comfortable. However, Paul "Peacock" Stone was telling us that West Ham had scored 4. Then 5. Then 6. Then 7. And all of a sudden, it became squeaky bum time again as the fat lady who had been practising her arpeggios disappeared. Stuart and I decided that we needed to score at least 1 more goal and gambled a bit by pushing Maisie up front and leaving a fit again Rocky alone in defence. A few minutes later, Captain Burridge found the net and that was that. 3-0. The girls were able to watch West Ham score their 9th goal of their game before their ref mercifully blew up meaning that our girls had pipped them by 1 goal. 

For a competition to be meaningful pretty much the last kick of the last game is unbelievable. Did we learn a lot? Too right we did. Let no-one pretend that Tiverton run away with the prizes in Devon only because the standard of the opposition is not good. This was a first class tournament with 4 very good teams including 1 other County Cup Winners side (Starlands), another in their own League Cup Final this weekend (Deeping Diamonds) and West Hame United in all their swanky kit, but it was our girls who stole the show. These girls are fantastically talented young footballers with an immense team spirit. The presentation was excellent and I would have given a few of my hard earned Scottish groats to know what Sit Geoff Hurst was thinking when he realised that little Tivvy had beaten his beloved West Ham United. West Ham 0, West Country 1. For some reason after that, West Ham weren't too keen to have their photos taken with us again. 

And finally, the icing on the cake, the final piece of the puzzle, what about the music playing "Black and Yellow" as first West Ham than Tiverton went to collect their prizes.