Arsenal Tournament Champions 2010

Arsenal are 2010 Tournament Champions

After a magnificent football weekend full of high quality play laced with passion and determination and watched by large crowds over the three days  it was a classy Arsenal side – making their first competitive visit to Ireland – who came out on top and they succeed Aberdeen AFC as holders of the St Kevins Boys Annual Under 12 International Tournament.

This tournament was by no means a stroll for the Gunners and they did have to work extremely hard for their victory especially in the final against a very strong DDSL side who did not seem to miss their SKB players as they sought to reverse an earlier group defeat (0-4) at the hands of their final opponents.

In a close game watched by a large enthusiastic crowd  it was Arsenal who went in front through Abdulkadir Jaylani but Andy Browne had the DDSL level by half time, it stayed that way until 10 minutes from time when following some slack play at the back Jaylani netted his second and it turned out to be the all important winner.

West Bromwich Albion and Austria Wien emerged from Group 1 which included a very disappointing home side who seemed out of sorts in all their games, while Arsenal and the DDSL came through Group 2 at the expense of an talented but unlucky  Brondby – only beaten (1-0) by Arsenal through a very late goal.

In the first semi final WBA had most of the possession and were denied two penalty claims before the DDSL  struck twice with two quality strikes which gave goalkeeper Matthew Hall no chance of stopping.

Austria Wien fancied their chances of pulling off a shock in the other semi final against Arsenal and indeed they put up a fine display and offered strong resistance before going down (2-0) – both goals coming in the latter stages of the game.

Brondby were very impressive outclassing SKB in the play-off for 5th/6th place, they led 4-0 well into the second half before a late revival by the home side put a semblance of respectibility on a (4-2) scoreline.

The 3rd/4th place play-off saw WBA win (4-0) over Austria Wien with Charles Weston Hayles showing why his club think so much of him with a brilliant display in the art of goalscoring.

The player of the Tournament as selected by the coaches of each team was Fuad Sullo of the DDSL while the aforementioned Charles Weston Hayles of West Bromwich Albion won the leading goalscorer award with 7 goals in his 4 games.

The quality of refereeing by the Tournament Officials  Lorcan White, Paddy Dempsey, Mark McEvoy and George Victory was top class throughout and was overseen superbly by the Referees Liason official Robert Harvey.

Sincere thanks to all our participating teams and their staff for attending our Tournament and thanks also to all our own members who gave of their time over the weekend and by doing so making this years event  another great success.