The U14G had a weekend tour of fun at the Mizuno Cup at Surbiton last weekend. The team had never really played together before and were entering a competition with the top 8 sides in the country so we entered expecting a tough experience but with the goal of learning lots.
The weekend tour started on the Saturday with some of the team heading down the road to Chessington Theme Park for some “team bonding” and lots of laughs. The next morning the team meet at Surbiton to support our club’s inspirational U16s boys who went on to win their competition…we think it is the girls shouts support that got them the win!

The team’s first match was against Sevenoaks who put out a strong team that challenged the Ipswich girls who’s lack of team experience became evident in a 3-0 loss. The girl fought hard. took the positives and the squad worked out what to improve. On they went to their next battle against host Surbiton who have 8+ U14G sides. This only spurred the girls on, and they worked on some key fundamentals of marking and passing the ball more. This was to be their best performance of the Cup, they fought really hard, supported each other and the marking was 10 times better. They may have lost 1-0 but this was a truly courageous display.

That evening they enjoy some food and fun at the hosts club and some of the girls then headed down to the Thames for the infamous chocolate ice-cream bombs! The next morning was an early start with an 08:30 match but the saddest news was that our captain Maisie’s knee injury, picked up the previous day, was too bad for her to play again. She still came along and supported her vice-captain, Summer, as she stepped up to lead the team. It was a tough day as a highly experienced and well drilled Cambridge City side exploited the opportunities created by our team’s lack of experience play together and it was a very hard 4-0 loss, but the girls NEVER gave up and showed real grit.
The final placement game’s score line of 4-0 really did not reflect the game itself but shows how the team needs to develop their attack in the final ¼ and get some more shots on goal.

As tough as the day was the girls had smiles on their faces through most of the long weekend. They have built some strong relationships, learnt lots about where they need to improve, NEVER given up and most importantly of all had loads of fun as the photos show.

Special thanks to Summer for stepping up as Captain, to all the parents, and particularly Millie’s mum Jo, who was team medic and was in the dugout for the last game pretty much constantly strapping people back together and getting them back on the pitch.