Darlington Spraire Lads: At the end of last month, Spraire Lads sent a squad to France to take part in the 20th International Tournament for 14 year-olds hosted by US Camon on the outskirts of Amiens.

To meet the French FA's age criteria Spraire was represented by a combined squad of the younger players from the Under-15 B and C teams, together with some older players from the Under-14 team.

Apart from the host club and Spraire, all of the other participating teams had links to professional clubs and it was no surprise that Spraire found the going tough.

In their opening group match, Spraire went down 2-0 to the eventual tournament winners, Troyes. Worse was to come as Spraire lost 3-0 to Maccabi Haifa from Israel, although Spraire played some good football in patches. In the next match Spraire were unlucky to lose by the only goal to Valenciennes. Next was a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Amiens, despite another spitited performance from Spraire. In their final group match, Spraire created numerous chances but had to settle for a 0-0 draw against Gwarek Ornontowice from Poland. In the play off phase, Spraire tasted victory for the first time with an excellent 1-0 win against Waalwijk from Holland; Elliot Gardner the scorer. In the final match, a header from Jamie King was enough to beat Gwarek Ornontowice 1-0 and to give Spraire an overall ranking of ninth out of 12 teams.

It was an experience to remember for all of the boys.

A special thanks goes to driver Jeff Anderson of Jeff Anderson Coaches, who to out-witted a dockers blockade at Calais on the return journey.