Six local primary schools visited the Derby County Training Centre last Friday (26th January) to take part in the Kids Cup local final.
This year’s competition will see Derby County Community Trust hoping to build on the success of 2016 and 2017, which have seen both Hilton Primary School and Etwall Primary School go all the way to Wembley and win the national competition.
The six teams present at Friday’s event qualified after coming out on top in the local round competitions the previous week, where they were amongst close to 60 local schools from across Derbyshire.
The six schools which made it to the local final were:
Griffe Field Primary School
Portway Junior School
Oakwood Junior School
John of Rolleston Primary School
Meadow Farm Primary School
Melbourne Junior School
The day produced some great football, all of which was played in the right spirit.
The group stage saw Portway and Melbourne become the first teams to drop out, with the remaining four sides taking each other on in the semi-finals.
The semi-finals finished with John of Rolleston overcoming Meadow Farm 2-0 and Oakwood securing a 1-0 win over Griffe Field
In what was a well contested final, John of Rolleston just edged it after scoring with two minutes remaining to seal a 1-0 win.
They will now go on to represent Derby County at the regional finals in March.
Rich Mansfield, Participation Manager at the Derby County Community Trust, said: “We always look forward to hosting the Kids Cup and this year has been no different.
“The standard across the board has been fantastic and every school has represented themselves brilliantly.
“We have been lucky enough to go to Wembley the past two years and from watching John of Rolleston in action, we are in with a good chance of making it three.”
Derby County Community Trust will be on hand to help John of Rolleston prepare for the area finals by attending training sessions and providing coaching in the build-up to the event.