National Finals at Gtech Community Stadium

This week has been an incredible week of sport. On Wednesday the whole school came to support our football team representing Brentford at the Premier League Primary Stars National Finals at the Gtech Community Stadium. Nearly 10,000 children from schools across England and Wales had competed for the chance to represent their respective clubs and Strand became this year’s host school for the tournament!

The boys arrived at school at the very early time of 7:15am to head down to the stadium. After changing into the Brentford kit, entering via the players entrance, walking through the tunnel, pausing for photo shoots and taking part in the opening ceremony the boys were ready to go. The whole school arrived just in time for their first group stage match, with all the action on pitch 2 happening right in front of the loud Strand crowd.

After winning two, drawing one and losing one (Nottingham Forest 1-0, Arsenal 2-1, Liverpool 1-1, Chelsea 2-3) we ended up with 7 points, putting Brentford joint top of the group! The team patiently waited for the final group matches to finish to see if they’d made it through to the semi-finals. In the end, it came down to a goal difference of just one goal that meant Brentford came second and wouldn't be progressing to the semi-finals.

It was such a special day for the whole school and we are exceptionally proud of the squad for their hard work to make it the finals. The focus, resilience and professionalism of our boys was unreal. Special thanks to Mr Bentley for the way he’s trained the team, his decisiveness with formations and importantly his passionate pitch side shouting. We wouldn’t have got to this day without him, the rest of the PE team or without Ms Smith-Stevenson’s determination and organisational skills.

It was a day none of us will forget.