MEMBERS of Monmouth Town’s Junior and Mini football teams had and enjoyable weekend to the seaside resort of Weymouth for this seasons end of season tour, over 200 players parents and coaches made the trip to the south coast, with the club having teams representing many of the age groups.

Weymouth Courgars were the hosts for the two day tournament and there tournament saw the Monmouth town players play teams from as far away as Guernsey and London as well as a range of local Dorset league clubs.

The under eights and under 10s had the worst of the weather on Saturday, as frequent rain showers caused some disruption to the games, but this did not dampen the players spirits with the under eights all coming away from the tournaments with medals for their day by the seaside.

Sunday brought better weather and the under nines, under 11s, under 13s and under 15s all took centre stage. The under nines had enough players to enter two teams into the league format, and both had good wins throughout the day which was a credit to them as the pitches were much bigger than they are used to playing on.

The older teams, playing on much larger pitches than they would normally expect for a tournament, all progressed well in the league format with each age group qualifying through into the knockout stages. In the first of the semi-finals the under 11s were a goal behind but were able to turn the result around in the second half to progress through to the final. Before their final could be played both under 13s and under 15s had semi-finals to be played. The under 13s also went behind early and just before half time they conceded again, a goal late in the second set up a tense finish but the team ran out of time and were knock out to the eventual winners.

The under 15s had a similar semi-final game to the under 13s and were also knocked out at the same semi-final stage.

With only the finals left the under 11s had their chances to come away victorious but a breakaway goal late into the second half meant that they had to settle for runners up.

The players from Monmouth Town Football Club had once again been a credit to the club, both on and off the field. The club would like to wish under 13s player Sam Uttley a speedy recovery after he sustained a knee injury which cut short his weekend and saw him return home on crutches.