Burscough Tournament

19/07/09-West Lancashire League Under 9s’

5 a-side Tournament at Burscough FC

Bury Girls Under 9’s win their first match!!

Bury Squad: Courteney, Eloise, Casey, Kiera, Amy and Katie.

The girls were invited to take part in the West Lancashire Girls League 5 a-side tournament at Burscough.

Unfortunately, due to prior commitments and holidays, we could only muster a squad of 6 for this tournament. One of the major absentees was head coach Graeme who was no doubt sunning himself on the Algarve when the girls took to the pitch for their opening match against Dynamo Rangers.

In a high scoring and very competitive match, the Bury Girls finally succumbed to a 5–2 defeat. Both of our goals were scored by Courteney but Bury also created quite a few other good scoring chances against a well-organised Rangers’ team.

In our second match, the girls played against a very strong Mill Hill team. We picked up a few knocks over the game and the girls also seemed to be suffering from tiredness after our tough opener. We eventually went down 3 – 0 but we were still in with a shout until we conceded the last goal in the closing minutes.

It was at this point that our “caretaker” coach Mark worked his motivational magic. It’s amazing how the threat of having to run around the pitch all Wednesday night did the job! We went into our final game against the Fillies with renewed energy and purpose. The Fillies didn’t know what had hit them and we ended up winning 4 – 2 with Hotshot Courteney scoring all four of them. Whilst every one of the Bury players tackled and ran their hearts out, a special mention must also go to Casey who stood in as a reluctant goalie and produced a string of fine stops to frustrate the Fillies.

All in all, the girls proved that they could more than hold their own against other more established teams. With our full squad to select from and a bit more belief in what we can achieve, let’s hope that our victory against the Fillies is the first of many to come. Well done to all who took part.

Have a look at the photographs from the day on the West Lancashire Girls website (http://www.wlgfl.co.uk/37.html).

Report by ‘Scoop’ Douglas, who was braving the action ‘pitchside’ at Burscough.