For this Throwback Thursday we travel back just a fortnight with ESFA photographer Garry Griffiths (353 Photography) who travelled around the North West covering three exciting first round fixtures.
Another relatively short throwback this week as we venture back just a fortnight to our opening travels of the 2020/21 season. With the pandemic forcing the cancellation of inter school matches, we are able to focus 100% attention on our representative football competitions which we did in a 3 day trip north, at the end of April.
Kicking the trip off in huddersfield, we saw Merseyside make the trip across the country on a sunny evening to face West Yorkshire. Having taken the lead midway through the half Merseyside were pegged back going into the break following a deflected shot that looped into the net. The visitors were soon back in front through some excellent long range strikes and a penalty from hat-trick man Kyffin. This flurry of second half goals extingusihed any hopes West Yorkshire had of making a comeback with Merseyside running out 7-1 winners and earning a trip to Staffordshire in the next round.
The following evening we covered that famous North West derby as Manchester hosted Liverpool in the Boys U13 Inter Association Trophy.
This cup tie was as dramatic as anything served up by the senior sides in the area as Liverpool found themselves 2-0 ahead at the break despite Manchester looking dangerous almost every time they ventured forward. After the break, a spot kick gave the home side hope before an equaliser midway through the half had the scores level going into the closing stages.
With extra time on the horizon it was the visitors who nicked it direct from a corner to edge through 3-2 although credit to Manchester who were excellent on the night despite going out of the competition.
Saturday morning then saw another derby as Preston hosted Bolton in the Under 15 Inter Association Trophy and we once again saw 7 goals for the visiting team.
Despite the final 7-2 scoreline in Bolton’s favour, the game was much closer than the scoreline suggests with the clinical nature of the visitors finishing the difference overall.
Leading 2-0 at the break the visitors increased the lead at the start of the second half but Preston hit back to give themselves hope, albeit quashed by a spectacular long range effort from 5 goal man Smith
Congratulations to all the teams involved and it certainly is good to have football back!
The National Governing Body for Schools’ Football in England.
