On Monday 2nd December, our Key Stage 3 football team travelled the short distance to The Triangle Leisure Centre in Burgess Hill to represent Woodlands Meed in the annual Albion Cup competition.  On arrival we were informed that this was a record breaking year, with 13 schools participating!

Our group was an extremely competitive one, with the majority of matches being decided by a single goal.  We started strongly, recording a hard-fought 2-1 win in our opening match against Cornfield, and this became a common theme with our fantastic footballers being victorious in their next three matches against Hillpark, Freyen College and Philpots.  Our final group match against league leaders St Marys ended in defeat, but we still finished second in our group. 

We deservedly progressed to the semi-finals where we met an extremely strong LVS Hassocks side.  It was not meant to be as our superstars eventually succumbed to a 4-0 defeat.  However, our students should hold their heads up high as I can’t remember the last time we were in the semi-finals of the Albion cup, and they can take great heart from the fact that the two defeats our students suffered where by the two schools who fought it out in the final!  Finishing third out of thirteen teams is something they should all be very proud of!  Every single one of our 9 players played their part but special mention must go to Kielen in goal who made some brilliant saves and encouraged his teammates throughout, James for making his debut and proving that he is an absolute goal machine, and Alfie for his never say die attitude.

 However, our player of the tournament was Fin who proved to be an absolute beast on the pitch; breaking up play, executing some tough tackles and making countless driving runs forwards, he was always supportive of his teammates and proved to be a manager’s dream!

Well done everyone, we are so proud of all of you!