Wiltshire Girls in Gothia World Youth Cup
Monday 10 August 2009By ESFA Office
Last Updated:
10/02/2021 11:49:06
Wiltshire Girls Team
The Gothia World Youth Cup has been running since 1975 and has entertained teams from some 127 countries from around the world. Teams from South America, Australasia, Africa and the Far East as well as Europe have entered and have made this a truly World event. Although Sweden provides most of the teams the variety of nations provides a variety of football styles and enables the participants to develop both as players as well as people with the opportunity to socialise with others from around the Globe. The cultural and social element is as important as the playing. This year school teams, local club sides as well as professional youth teams from England were very much in evidence.
After months of fund raising, letter writing, phone calls a squad of 15 girls all Under 15 and mainly from Wiltshire embarked on the trip of a lifetime on Sunday 12th July 2009 to the Gothia World Youth Cup in Gothenburg Sweden. The girls represented Swindon Town Football in the Community Trust, after the suggestion to enter was made by them. They were supported by Swindon Town Football in the Community coaches Jon Holloway and Clive Maguire, managed by Wendy Craig and Tony Williams from Dorcan Technology College and Wiltshire Schools FA and were sponsored by @futsal, Wiltshire FA and the RAF.
The Girls were entered in the G15 class (U15 Girls) which had 132 teams competing in 30 pools of 4 and 5 – the only English team in this competition. In the pool games the girls won one game but despite battling hard lost the other two to put them through to the “B” Cup competition. After a lot of soul searching and performance analysis they came together as a team and performed exceptionally well in the following knockout games. The girls battled through 9 matches in 6 days to triumphantly win the plate competition. They played and won two games on Thursday and 3 games including the semi-final on the Friday.
Their final was played on Saturday morning at the Heden Centre the main Gothia cup arena, where although extremely tired the girls raised themselves to produce another excellent performance to win convincingly 2-0. The girls applied themselves throughout the week, with real commitment and were ambassadors for their schools, Wiltshire and girl’s football in general.
They demonstrated real sporting etiquette throughout the week and made friends with players from many other nationalities and displayed outstanding camaraderie – some of the teams they played against or met during the tournament week were a supporting presence at the Final, thanks to the socialising that had occurred after the games. The team was deserving of their victory and success, both as footballers and people and is now hoping to return next year to take the next step and hopefully win the “A” Cup in the next age group.
