Grammar girls are on the ball
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Limavady Grammar School’s Under 13 Football Team are winners of the Northern Ireland School’s Cup. Pictured with Limavady Mayor Brenda Chivers are Dr Sam McGuinness and the team: Victoria Macqueen, Becky McMullan, Nadine Mullan, Hannah McArthur, Lisa Hart
WHAT a year for the Girls Football Club in Limavady Grammar School. Girls football started in the school five years ago with a very small number showing lots of interest in this sport.
The following year it was decided to enter the North Coast U15 girls football league.
It has taken four long years for the girls to progress from the 'B' division into the Premier League and to finally secure the League Title, just beating close rivals Coleraine High and Dalriada.
Earlier this year, for the first time, the girls entered the national indoor 7's tournament, where they were also successful winning the Derry heat and then going on to win the Northern Ireland Indoor title and receiving a new football kit for the school.
Ironically, with the school year nearly over the girls faced two major finals. On Monday 23rd June the Junior and Senior teams played in the Northern Ireland Schools Cup Finals. Both these matches took place at Mid Ulster Sports Arena, Cookstown.
The Junior team had a tough battle to fight to get to the finals. They had to win a very strong Derry heat which was hosted at Oakgrove Integrated College with 14 schools taking part in the event.
After playing seven matches in the group stages of the tournament, the Junior team then had to face the hosts in the semi finals. This match was extremely exciting with no clear difference between both teams and eventually had to be decided on penalties., with the outcome being Oakgrove Integrated losing 2-1 to Limavady Grammar. In the other game Thornhill College defeated Rainey Endowed from the penalty spot. The final proved to be a tense encounter with neither Thornhill nor Limavady managing to find the vital goal during normal time. In the end, it was Limavady Grammar who held their nerve, with Becky McMullan slotting the winning penalty kick coolly into the back of the net.
