The Courier

Fantastic congratulations to Marco and Jamie who were selected to represent the Midlands at the ISA National Swimming finals in London on Sunday 21st January.  The event was held at the Olympic Pool in London and was attended by over 1500 in spectators and 400 swimmers.

Both boys competed extremely well, putting in fantastic legs for the 200m freestyle relay teams. Marco's Year 4 team finished a very comfortable 1st place and Jamie swam his socks off to bring his Year 5 team from 3rd to first on his leg. Unfortunately the excitement of the day and the nerves of the venue got the better of other swimmers in their teams and both teams were disqualified for faulty change overs by other swimmers.

A superb experience for the boys and lessons learnt for future events.  Everyone at Crescent is very proud of you and your achievements.

This Saturday, it was the turn of the Under 9s to play in a tournament.  Their previous outing did not show their full capability as they struggled against Solihull.

The first match set the tone as the boys passed the ball around with vision and confidence and won comfortably 2-0. They then played Beeston Hockey Club which they knew would be a challenge as Beeston are one of the top teams in the country. However, the boys looked more than comfortable in a 0-0 draw and had more of the attacking play.

Josh Gorbutt came out of goal as other teams did not have goalkeepers and he was yet to touch the ball!  He joined a defensive three alongside Joshua Olner and Marco Rodriguez Hernandez, between them, they were a rock in front of the D.

Marco passed out of defensive superbly to set up attacks and the attacking four of Matthew Thomas, George Bell, Isaac Nelson and Archie Dowling were a handful.  Dowling got his positioning right and scored the winner against Belper Hockey Club - another big club - before bagging a hat-trick against Foremarke 'B'. 

Crescent knew that the last two matches would be tough as they had to play Solihull and Foremarke 'A'.  George Bell made better decisions on the right which caused problems for the defenders and Isaac Nelson cut in from the left to support Dowling up front.  Thomas was great going forward and backwards and controlled the play from the middle.  Against Solihull, Crescent thought they had scored but the goal was ruled out for an earlier foul and then a ball across the face of the goal couldn’t be touched in. 0-0 v Solihull.

The boys looked a little tired against Foremarke and the hosts took advantage by creating some great goalscoring chances. Last gasp defending and the odd bit of luck kept Foremarke out.  With seconds remaining, Dowling, who had been quiet in this match, was in the right place at the right time to give Crescent the win.

There were matches still remaining so everyone was trying to work out whether Crescent could win overall and what results were needed.  In the end, it was an amazing finish as Solihull had exactly the same points, goal difference, goals scored and goals conceded as Crescent.  It was decided that the win should be shared rather than penalty shuffles. 

Well done boys!

It was not long before Crescent were able to put in practice what they had learned from the Saturday tournament.  The response was very pleasing. Matthew Thomas and Dylan Hopkins defended with maturity in the first half and let nothing past.  Oliver Bell, who had performed consistently well on Saturday, did so again.  Fin Calder was much more of a threat up front and he hit some early shots that troubled the goalkeeper.  It was Calder who gave the visitors the lead from a short corner.

Warwick equalised shortly after following some good build up play.  Late on in the first half, a couple of one-twos between Calder and O. Bell culminated in a shot form Calder.  George Bell was on the back post to make sure that it went in. 2-1.  That is how the game finished as the second half ebbed and flowed but stayed as it was.

Crescent have got some national tournaments coming up so this was a good opportunity to try out and find out things in a warm up tournament.

Crescent started brightly, drawing with a strong Foremarke Hall team.  It was a fair result on the balance of play.  After that, Crescent struggled defensively and were hesitant in front of goal.  Against Bedford, they showed more signs of what they are capable of and came away with a 1-0 win.

The lessons learned from the tournament were that Chris Gibson is an ever improving goalkeeper as he made lots of top quality saves; Dylan Hopkins looked comfortable in his first 'A' team match; the children need to be more confident in their shooting and more competitive in their tackling.