Minterne Community Junior School sadly miss out after exiting the Football League Kids Cup at the Regional Finals
On Wednesday the team from Minterne Community Junior School headed to Swindon for the Regional Finals of the Kids Cup.With 12 teams taking part the task of making it to the final at Wembley was always going to be a tough job, however the team went in to the competition positively after a great display in the local finals.
Swindon, Walsall, Coventry, Leyton Orient, MK Dons, Brentford, Bristol City, Peterborough, Colchester, Stevenage and Crawley also had schools representing them on the day.
Minterne's first game was against Swindon, and it was the opponents who scored first to take the early lead, and while Gillingham pressed throughout and had the bulk of the possession, they couldn’t make their chances count.
In their second game they faced a strong Leyton Orient team. After some great play the Gills opened the scoring with a well worked goal but Leyton Orient were quick to respond and draw the scores level.
The Gills continued to press but were caught on the break and saw Orient score what would be the winner.
Up next the Gills faced Coventry and again pressed throughout in a game which could easily have gone either way. However Coventry took a narrow victory before Walsall provided the next fixture.
Gills started well, scoring twice in the early stages but Walsall came back strong and managed to score two in quick succession to gain the draw.
In their last game the Gills came up against MK Dons and again started off strong, scoring in the first minute and looked comfortable throughout until a controversial penalty was awarded against them in the last minute.
MK Dons converted the spot kick and capitalised quickly on their equaliser and scored again in the dying seconds to snatch the win from the Gills.
As always the standard of football on show was high, with games close and goals hard to come by. This unfortunately proved to be our downfall as while we created plenty of chances we just weren’t able to tuck them away.
Thank you to the team and teachers who were a credit to the club and acted with professionalism throughout.