Durham City: Durham enjoyed a successful weekend at East Dunbartonshire's Three Nations event, returning home with silver medals in both the junior and senior tournaments.
The event involved teams from East Dunbartonshire, Hamilton, Dunfermline, Dundee, Inverness and Belfast side Setanta.
The Juniors won four matches and lost one in the round-robin meeting Setanta in the play-off final. This was a close-fought match, with neither side scoring by the end of the game. The match was decided using golden goal extra time and despite a couple of close misses by City, a well-taken opportunity by Setanta put and end to City's hopes.
It was a similar story in the Senior tournament, after an initial draw against hosts East Dunbartonshire, City won the remaining three games to meet the hosts again in the final. The final was a close game,with the Scots clearing feeling honour at stake.
Despite being two goals down at the end of the first half, City fought back well to level the scores. However, a fine goal by the home side in the closing seconds of the game left the final score at 3-2. The performance of both City teams was extremely creditable. Durham's mixed squad of boys and girls found themselves playing mainly all-male teams in a sport where physical strength can be an advantage.
The squad was missing a number of experienced players due to exam commitments. Several players played in both the Junior and Senior sides giving these players three tough games back-to-back in the closing stages of the competition. City's success was partly due to coach Woods astute tactics, which saw changes of goalkeeper and tactics depending on whether the team was attacking or defending the narrow shallow-end goal.
Juniors: Ben Gourlay, Thomas Hole, Alison Mell, Joel Woods, Chris Stephenson, Andrew Twist, Peter Ward, Emma Wilkinson.
Seniors: Simon Haley, Alison Mell, Anna Richardson, Chris Stephenson, Nicola Stephenson, Alex Ward, Peter Ward, Joel Woods. Coaches: Ronnie Woods, Sophie Hole.
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