Lee Pacey reflects on an incredible season for our Under 13s

As an absolutely remarkable season comes to an end we take a look back at the journey this amazing group of u13s have been on.

From day one Mark & I knew we had something special and this season showed us just how special, yes there were a few downs and learning curves but the positives way outnumbered those not so good moments.

Everyone was nervous going into the first game of the season against a fancied Takeley, but the boys came away with a brilliant and dominant 7-2 victory!

Over the next few games is where we had our biggest lesson in EJA and we as coaches and players certainly learned a lot from this period. We won our next 2 games after Takeley but then lost our next 3 games after that! But we sorted out a few teething issues off the pitch and kept the positive environment for the boys as we always knew they would turn this bad spell around and that they did.

Winning 12 drawing 1 and losing 1 game in our last 14 games.

Eventually, we ended up winning the league by 11 points scoring 77 and conceding 22.

This then lead us into the Champions of Champions mini tournament where we got drawn against a very good Bedford Town FC, in this game we actually went 6-2 up but after a very very tense last few minutes which included a couple of penalty saves from our GK Maison, we ran out winners 6-5

We would then face our friends but fierce rivals Histon in the Final.

So here we go, the biggest game any of our players have ever played in and the first time a Cambridge City youth team have ever been in the champions final so there was a lot of pressure on us all, but the boys didn’t disappoint.

We went into the game as complete underdogs every neutral would have backed a very talented Histon team, who had smashed their league, to defeat us! However this was a day for the underdog.

We went 1-0 up and defended for our lives but unfortunately Histon got lucky in the last minute of normal time and took the game to extra time.

Going into extra time our lads were absolutely shattered and a lot were walking wounded but the character, grit and determination they were showing meant Histon were getting frustrated and we always knew we would get 1 big chance BUT we had to take that chance, so we were patient right up until the final few minutes and that’s when it happened! We broke there play down and the ball fell to Ada who cut across 3 players and then played the most amazing reverse pass into the path of Taddy who calmly slotted the ball home winning us the game and making us Champions of Champions.

At the final whistle the lads fell to their knees not quite believing what they had achieved, but what they had achieved was the proudest moment of mine and Marks footballing journey as managers, those boys are absolute super heroes and got exactly what they deserved.

So that’s it season 1 is over, a season that not only saw us win the league and Champions of Champions but also saw us have some amazing opportunities where we beat the likes of Norwich City, drew with a full Reading academy and lost to a full Arsenal FC academy 2-0 but the lads were 0-0 at half time but again to have these opportunities shows the level we are at.

We now look forward to next season, strengthening our squad and defending both our titles, some very exciting times ahead