Heartbreaking end for year 11 footballers
Hull Cup Final: Sirius Academy 0-1 Malet Lambert.
During their 5 years at Sirius Academy, the current year 11 footballers have always struggled against a Malet Lambert team who have reached the final and late stages of the national competition regularly. Unfortunately on Friday afternoon, in what would be their final game for the Academy, they were once again runners up.
The team were always going to find the game tough coming into the game without Josh Jarvis, Keiran Sewell and Charlie Morriss against a team who were determined to bounce back after their National Cup Semi-Final defeat earlier in the week. In the first half, the game was tightly balanced with neither team looking likely to break the deadlock in a nervy derby encounter. Both sets of strikers were feeding off scraps with best chances coming from long-range efforts by both teams.
A half time change was made to add more fire power to the Sirius attack with 1 goal seeming to be enough for either team to win. The best chance for Sirius came with a fine run by Dom Litwinski down the right hand side who found Alfie Pougher in the box to lay off a perfect ball for sub Martin Jude. However, the finish was not as good and the build up with the ball sailing over the bar. Again neither team looked like scoring this half but Malet had the better of the possession forcing Stephen Pougher and the Sirius back line to be on high alert as time wore on and tired legs came into play.
With only 8 minutes left in the game and penalties looking likely, Malet broke the deadlock. Build up play by the sharp left winger was met with a fine finish in the bottom left corner, the keeper had no chance of saving. Sirius pushed in the dying minutes finding good possession but the ball was wasted when it reached the final third. The whistle blew to end a fantastic cup run with a deflated Sirius team defeated.
The Sirius players were, as expected, devastated with the result even though they still came 2nd in the whole city with medals to show their achievement.
It has been an honour to watch this team develop over my time at Sirius Academy and I am very proud of them. A highlight has certainly been their Humberside Cup victory last season but the team have always put in fantastic effort in every competition and regularly have been runners up to a brilliant school who produce Hull City players.
Please pass on praise to the following students:
Stephen Pougher, Jak Langley, Adam Kelsey, Joe Boxall, Callum Baker, Dom Litwinski, Alex Appleby, Jamie Gould, Harry Knight, Shahyar Hossieni, Alfie Pougher, Martin Jude, Jordan Hance and Dylan Freeman.
Thanks to Mr Basile and Mr Kay for their support at the game and Mr Proven for his continued support every year.
