St Peter's footballers shine to make Catholic Cup quarters
CUP STARS: St Peters Primary Schools football team, from left, Luca Davey, Tom Kelly, Ben Broadbent, George Bond, Josh Greening (coach), Lennon Gillian, Stevo Jose and Toby Beard
St Peters primary school's footballers hit form with an impressive quarter-final finish in the Catholic Primary Schools Football Cup in Middlesbrough.
Sixty-eight Primary Schools competed across the diocese of Middlesbrough for this year's Cup and the St Peters A team were drawn in Group C against St Pius X, St Augustine's, St Mary's Market Weighton, St Therese of Lisieux, St Mary's Richmond and St Bede's B.
St Peter's team consisted of Ben Broadbent, Tom Kelly, Stevo Jose, Toby Beard, Lennon Gillian, Luca Davey and George Bond.
The Scarborough youngsters started energetically, with goals from Kelly, Beard, Broadbent and Jose in the first game to complement some crucial saves by Bond in goal, ensuring a comfortable 8-1 win against St Pius X.
Spurred on by their performance they carried on their momentum to comfortably beat St Augustine's 4-0, with goals from Broadbent and Beard to secure a second consecutive victory.
The next four group matches saw an array of skilful goals, with an impressive free-kick goal from Beard and some strong defending by Gillian and Davey.
The highlight of their last group match was a sharp display of four quickfire goals by Jose in a 9-0 win against St Bede's B to end off the team's unfaltering clean sweep of the group matches to take the top spot in their group.
This secured them a place in the quarter-finals against St Gabriel's in testing and sweltering conditions.
A strong Gabriel's side edged an early goal and produced a wall of defence too strong for St Peter's, who lost the match 2-0.
Striker Broadbent said: "We played so well together as a team with a really positive attitude.
"We were on such a high after winning all our qualifying games.
"The quarter-final defeat was emotional but I was proud to have come so far together as a team."
Proud coach Mr Josh Greening said: "The boys put on a fantastic display of teamwork and skills to finish at the top of their group, I'm extremely proud of the way they conducted themselves on and off the pitch."
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Striker Kelly added: "We would all like to thank Mr Greening for his dedication in coaching us over the last four years.
"He has been an inspiration to us all and has motivated us to strive to do our best."
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