Bredhurst Church of England Primary School

The girls performed really well in the competition, they only lost one game, drawing two and winning one, which put them in 3^rd place for the knockout stage. We were up against one of the strongest teams, but managed a draw which put us then in the penalty shootout. The rules were 3 penalty takers. Felicity our youngest player took the first one straight into the top corner. Alba scored next. Felicity was in goal for the penalty shoot out, and managed to save the second shot from the opposition so it was 2-1 to us. Jessica took the final shot hitting the post. The opposition scored the next goal making it 2-2. Now for sudden death. Millie scored but the opposition missed so the result was 3-2. We should have been the winners but the ref decided more penalties to were to be taken, total confusion. Mia scores her goal, then the opposition scores so it is now 4-3. Maya unfortunately misses, the opposition scores it is now 4-4. Now it is sudden death again. Felicity scores, opposition scores 5-5. Next Alba misses, as so does the opponent and Jessica, finally, they score and we are out.

The infuriating thing is that the match should have finished when we were 3-2 up. Many other coaches also agreed this as it was meant to be 3 penalty takers. For some reason the referee did not follow the competition rules. – as a result we were out! The girls played a brilliant match all of them made our school proud even as they took the defeat.

After complaining, we could not change the result, but the organisers have recognised the mistake and apologised, offering our whole team to be match day mascots at the Maidstone Woman’s first team game on Saturday 2^nd November, at the Gallagher Stadium along with a member of their family.