Saturday 20th January 2007

MKDJ7 Indoor Football Festival
Under 10’s

Hornets entered 2 teams this year to represent the club; we called then simply Hanslope Hornets 1 & Hanslope Hornets 2 – thought long and hard over this one. Alfie was looking after Team 1 and I was looking after Team 2.
The sad thing was that during the morning there were so many games being played that each manager had to keep his team together ready to be waiting outside the hall to play a game. We ended up playing most of the time when the other team were standing outside ready to play their game, so we didn’t get too much time to cheer each other on.

Team 1 consisted of: Liam, Tom, Nathan, Kyran, Bradley & Daniel.
Team 2 consisted of: Dan, Ben P, Ben B, Luci, Matt & James

Looking at the list of clubs who put teams in this year there was a very good mix of well drilled teams playing so today was not going to be easy for anyone.

Team 1 had matches against: LeightonTown Rangers, Southcott Owls, MK City, MK Wanderers Kestrels, Mortonville Wanderers & Pitstone & Ivinghoe Panthers.

Team 2 had matches against: Mortonville Rovers, Leighton Town Trojans, Netherfield Saints, MK Wanderers Falcons, Woodside Rovers & Brookfield Rangers Peregrines.

Hornets Team 1 found it hard going and getting used to the indoor rules and ended up loosing 5 of their games but pulled in a hard fought drew against Pitstone. It’s not easy playing 6 minute games and going full power all of the time, for most of them it was the first indoor tournament they had played in so we will know a bit more next year and do a lot better.

Hornets Team 2 had abetter morning by winning 2 games, drawing 2 games and missing out on 2 games with narrow defeats.
Due to all of the hard work put in the lads, they got into the quarter finals playing Southcott Owls. This was a very tight fought game and ended up 2-2 after 6 minutes so we entered into the dreaded penalty shoot out.
The 4 out field players hit 3 and missed one, as did the Owls so it was down to the goalies to decide this game. Up stepped Dan and blast home a cracker, he then went in goal ready to stop their goalies shot. Their goalie cracked one towards goal but just tucked to the outside of the post. Hornets are now into the semi finals. We are further now than at any indoor festival we have played in. We had to now face Leighton Town Rangers, just 6 minutes between us and the final. This game proved too hard and having run their hearts out today the going was getting tough. We held them well and got to 4-3 but in the final seconds Leighton Town hit the winner and won by 5-3.
We had a few tears after this game because the want to win was so great, I loved to see passion from them and saw some fine team football today.

I’m pleased to say that we went out to the team that ended up winning the competition; they were a good side and deserved their victory. Well we now have a target set for next year…………………

Everyone had a fantastic morning enjoying the whole well run festival, everything went like clockwork, how the guys who run this so well each beats me. There were 49 games play between 9 o’clock and 1230, takes some doing but it happened.

I have attached a team photo to the Under 10’s section of the website to remember the day by.

Everyone got a lovely silver medal for their efforts plus free tickets to go and watch the Dons in a few weeks time.

Thanks to everyone who got the lads down there on time and cheering us on, we almost done it for you but went out to a good team who play much higher in the league than we do so we can feel proud of our hard work.

WELL DONE YOU HORNETS