Great Football

Twenty-three players from Years 5 and 6 used their half-term holiday time to represent St. Christopher’s at the annual Unity Cup tournament in Dubai from Thursday 22 February to Sunday 25 February. Starting off with the 7-a-side format, our three teams – Rovers, United and Athletic – got stuck into their group games. For Rovers, it was mostly their first time playing abroad for the school and they stepped up admirably to battle for their goals. Athletic also worked hard and put together some good results to join United in the semis. Having beaten IAA from Jordan in their semi, United ended up one dubious penalty away from victory in the final against a strong Jumeirah team and had to be content with second place. Athletic matched United’s result in their own play-off against IAA and earned a third place finish.

Saturday was the more traditional 11-a-side competition and the players reconfigured into two teams – Wanderers and City. Wanderers got off to the better start, dispatching IAA comprehensively again but then lost their goal touch in the following 0-0 draws. City continued to give each match their all but also found scoring difficult. In the end, with this year’s fixtures scheduled as a straight league, Wanderers’ missed opportunities cost them and another silver medal rather than gold was the result. City pulled out a respectable fifth place finish out of the eight teams playing.

Well done to all the players for their fine effort and consistently good behaviour throughout the whole weekend. Huge thanks must also go to Mr. Maye and Mr. Dales who gave up their own holiday time to travel with and supervise the boys.

United: Sam Stubbs, Thomas Jessup, Aiden Kadissi, Abboud Abi Ramia, Zouheir Hamdan, Faisal Fakhro, Abdulla Al Aali, Sam Hayes.

Athletic: Oliver Duell, Ghazi Abunahl, Cillian Finlay, Sam Al Koheji, Faisal Al Jassim, Zade Nouri, Cameron Charters.

Rovers: Leo Williamson, Noah Dales, Rashed Al Khalifa, Sami Ghozlani, Rakan Jallad, Mohammed Al Khalifa, Matthew Van Der List, Fuad Kanoo.