On Sunday 17th June at the University of York, Bootham Futsal Club U14s tried to make it a magnificent 3 of qualifiers for the National Youth Futsal Finals.  Last weekend the clubs U12s and U16s, under very different circumstances, both made it there.

The U14s played four 15 minute games against Ecclesfield School, a team from Sheffield.  The results from each game where then added together to find the overall winner.

The first game was a tale of missed chances.  In the first 5 minutes Bootham hit the post or bar 4 times but somehow found themselves 3-0.  They rallied well to get the game back to 3-2 but then let in a goal just before the end, final score 4-2.

Game 2 saw a much better performance, again with Bootham striking the post or more than one occasion, but they still won this game 1-0, and really should have scored more.

Game 3 saw a stalemate of 0-0 with Bootham again striking the post and crossbar.  They were very much in control but just couldn’t convert their chances.

All to play for in Game 4 and Bootham started on the front foot and created chance after chance, but unfortunately got hit on the break to be trailing 1-0.  A very dubious penalty against Bootham saw them trail 2-0, before getting a late goal to leave the final score 2-1 and 6-4 on aggregate.

In conversation Coach Chris said, ‘I have never seen a match in which the post and bar were hit so many times, it was unbelievable.  After that I just knew it wasn’t going to be our day.  That said, the girls played some fantastic futsal, they all worked so hard, and on a different day, they would have been going to the finals.  We are so proud of each and every one of them.’

See below for images from a very cruel day: