Having won the cup last year, the now Under 11 Pride have once again reached their cup final. A quite incredible achievement.
This certainly didn’t seem possible when they were 2-0 down in the first round away to St Helier on a wet and windy day but these boys don’t know when they are beaten and a winner with the last kick of the game saw them progress.
Draws against higher ranked teams in the Quarter and Semi Finals provided further challenges but two amazing performances ensured they will once again be representing Sheen Lions at a cup final.
The final will be played at Leatherhead FC on Sunday 31st March against Walton and Hersham Swans, a team from the league above. The boys have played them twice this season, both ending in high scoring draws and both fantastic games of football.
Good luck boys. Regardless of the result next Sunday the club are very proud of all of you.
Congratulations to the U18’s who won their League Cup Semi Final against Kingstonian on Sunday March 17th.
Well done to all the 21 players in the squad who have helped us get this far this season, this is a huge archievement. Special thanks to James our coach, Michael who has been a mentor to many at the club and the parents who support and help us each week.
“The lads should be proud, this is a squad that was only created at the start of this season and to now be in the Final is a superb recogntion for the quality and togetherness we have”.Come on you Lions …….
Cast your mind back to late June (when England were halfway through their glorious toils in Russia) but more significantly for the club – this was the last competitive set of games or tournament for the U8 Lions, (now U9 Lions).
The club were kindly invited to participate in the One Tournament, a leading national competition, bringing teams from all over England together, to play at the Home of the National Team…St Georges Park.
Against this splendid backdrop and super impressive facilities – the U8 Sheen Lions team took to the task in hand well, where despite losing the first game (1-nil) – to side from Coventry, we went on to beat teams from Stoke, Grantham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool in the other group games.
It was fair to say, the squad of 10 all contributed to play some fast, quick, attacking football, where in one game of 15 minutes, we managed to score 6 goals against one team, who just couldn’t get the ball off the Lions….in full throttle. This helped our all important goal difference and mean’t we qualified for the semi-finals to play a strong side from Manchester – whom we beat 2-1 in a closely fought, nail-biting tie.
So, out of the 12 teams from all over the country we were now in the final against a leading Liverpool side… LN2. Again the team worked very hard and we managed to sneak in a fine 1-nil result, in a very close game.
Proud to say, we won our first cup, in only the second tournament we’d played in competitively. On a sporting note, I was proud of how the Lions comforted the losing side (you forget how young they are sometimes!)
The team collected their silverware and celebrated here ..
Ironically, on leaving St Georges, we bumped into the team from Coventry who humorously laid claim to the fact that as they were the only team to beat the Lions – they’d won the tournament !
A few of the dads celebrated hard with a shandy in the local pub in Burton on Trent before the team headed back off on their 128 mile trek back to London – with a smile on our faces and first trophy in the boot.
It was a great way to end the season and super result for the team and proud parents. Now for this season ..
Twenty five promising young Sheen Lions players had the opportunity to play against three very good Westside teams today. With one squad of U6’s and three squads of U7’s.
All players were able to apply their knowledge and understanding of what they have been working on over the past few month’s and use them in game situations. The boys were able to play within a team (the majority playing for the first time against opposition), with everyone playing extremely well.
Head Coach Michael said “Thanks to coach Sam, Dom and Ryan all players over the last 7 weeks have come on leaps and bounds, but still have a lot of learning and developing to do during the rest of the season”.
