On Thursday our girls’ football team paid a visit to the MGroup Stadium, the home of Oxford City FC and Oxford United Women. We were there to compete in our last football event of the year – the 5-a-side Oxfordshire County Final. Having already wrapped up the league title for the second year running, we were aiming to become county champions for the first time. We began in a group of five teams, needing to finish in the top two positions to earn a place in the semi-finals.

Our opening fixture saw us take on The Batt school of Witney in North Oxfordshire. With the matches only being eight minutes long, we knew any goals could be decisive, but solid defensive performances from both sides saw the match finish in a 0-0 draw.

We continued our resolute defending against our next opponents, Millbrook Primary of Grove. Despite launching wave after wave of attacks, we just couldn’t find the goal we needed to secure our first victory and had to settle for another goalless draw.

Heading into our third group fixture – versus Langford Village of Bicester – we knew we had to start converting our chances and turn our draws into wins. Unfortunately, another even contest saw neither side break the deadlock, and for the third game in succession we drew 0-0.

For our final group game, we knew we had to win and then hope other results went our way to secure a semi-final place.

We got that win.

The ball arrived at the feet of Saule in the opposition penalty box. She turned the defender and fired a low shot into the far corner to give us our first goal of the day and a 1-0 win against the side who began the game at the top of our group, St John Fisher of Oxford.

It is not very often that a team gets knocked out in the group stage having neither lost nor conceded a goal, and we were glad that we did not fall into that category. Other results in the group had gone our way, and we advanced to the semi-finals as group runners-up. Whatever happened now, we would be guaranteed a place in the top four schools in the whole of Oxfordshire.

We faced Buckland, from Faringdon in West Oxfordshire and winners of the other group, for a place in the final. Another tight match followed, but sadly it was the opposition who broke the deadlock halfway through the game. As we pushed for an equaliser that would have sent the tie to penalties, Buckland hit us on the break and sealed the game with a 2-0 victory. They would go on to win the whole competition.

However, all was still not said and done. We had one more match to go – the Third/Fourth Place Play Off against St John Fisher, who had finished top of our group earlier in the day. In what was another even but cagey affair, the tie finished 0-0 and we headed to a penalty shootout.

Lili and Eliza scored two of our first three penalties. St John Fisher also scored two out of three, and we headed into sudden death.

Both teams missed – Claudia making a great save to keep us level.

Then St John Fisher took their next penalty.

But it went wide.

Next, Saule stepped up.

Saule scored.

We won 3-2 on penalties, and in doing so sealed third spot as well as a bronze medal, which was presented to us by Liam Gilbert, the manager of Oxford United Women FC.

And that is that for another wonderful year of girls’ football at SCPS. We finish as league champions and with another top three finish in the County Finals. Defending a league title and maintaining a top three position in the whole county is some achievement, and this year’s cohort of girls have done us so proud over the season. They have built upon their technical skills, worked hard to improve, shown a tremendous work ethic and have based their excellent teamwork around the firm foundation of true friendship. The girls have been a huge credit to SCPS and have contributed massively to sustaining the profile of girls’ football at our school.

As ever, thank you to all of those parents who helped with transport and cheered the girls on.

The team was: Lili F, Nia B, Freya H, Saule B, Eliza G, Bella B-L, Claudia V, Isabella DS, Ella Y and Issy C.