HOLY Trinity School were among the winners of the Nash Cup alongside St John’s and Portesham as the annual youth football tournament returned to Redlands.
Holy Trinity took home the large schools competition after a gruelling penalty shoot-out, while St John’s took the small schools competition with a last-minute goal and Portesham eased to victory over Southill in the final of the girls’ competition.
Nadia Kusminoff, School Games Organiser who put together the event, said: “It was brilliant, everyone turned up on time, we had leaders from Wey Valley as Year Nine boys and some girls acted as coaches for the schools and then we had referees on each of the pitches as well and they were brilliant.
“To be honest, if it was not for them we would not be able to run it.”
The event saw around 300 children compete and enjoy themselves on the day with 14 schools attending in total.
The tournament’s original date of Friday, March 9 had to be postponed due to the wet pitches as a result of the heavy snow the weekend before and was rearranged for two weeks later, a process which Kusminoff described as: “Like organising a whole new tournament within two weeks.”
Often the Year Nine referees and coaches are those who have played in a previous edition of the Nash Cup.
Kusminoff said: “It is quite funny because the leaders we have from Wey Valley will come back and say oh that is my old school, I played in the Nash Cup when I was in Year Six so it is a really nice cycle for them.”
Weymouth FC captain Jake McCarthy attended the day as well and met players from the schools.
Kusminoff said: “It is probably one of my favourite events as well because where you stand at Redlands you have that vastness of football field and if you stand back you can see all of the six pitches going on.
“It is probably one of our most popular events, number one because it is football and it is where it has been running for so long that people know about it and they always enter, but the girls’ competition has got a lot more popular over the last couple of years.
“It never used to be that popular but we now actually get the same amount of girls teams as we do with the boys.”
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