On Friday our Y5/6 boys’ football team made their way to the Oxford Academy to compete in the Oxfordshire County Finals, a competition we qualified for before Christmas. For this competition, we had to play five games of eight minutes, and the school with the most points at the end would be declared the winner.

We began with a match against St Christopher’s School of Cowley in Oxford. This was a tight contest that seemed destined for a 0-0 draw before we won a free kick just outside their penalty area. Louie B stepped up and struck a low, fierce shot into the bottom corner to seal a 1-0 win in our opening game.

Our next fixture saw us take on St Michael’s where, despite creating the better chances, we could not force a breakthrough and had to settle for a 0-0 draw.

By the time we played our next game, other results had meant that we would go into our final game top of the table if we managed to win against St John Fisher.

We worked hard.

We stayed solid at the back.

This time, we took one of our chances, with Louie B beating two defenders and drilling a shot into the bottom corner to seal the 1-0 victory we needed to keep our fate in our own hands.

Our final match was against a familiar nemesis in Goring, who were second in the table. This meant that if we didn’t lose, we would be County Champions. A draw would have been enough.

But we didn’t draw.

We won.

Early in the game, Donnie won the ball in the right back position and laid it into the path of Louie B, who then drove down the right wing before rolling a low cross into the feet of Jonah who swept the ball under the keeper and into the net. Another 1-0 win was exactly what we needed to guarantee first place and to be able to call ourselves Oxfordshire County Champions for the first time.

A massive thanks to those who helped with transport, and a huge well done to the boys who played superbly throughout and who thoroughly earned this achievement.

The team was: Louie B, Charlie C, Felix C, Teddy E, Donnie F, Jack F, Jonah W, Noah B, Louie D, Ben N and Xander O’B-W.