Congratulations to Notre Dame’s Football Academy students, who have won the Association of Colleges Yorkshire and Humber League! The team is pictured above with their trophy and medals.
Team coach, Senior Tutor, and Sport Coordinator Mr. Tom Thorpe gave us his review of the season.
“Due to the pandemic, the football season was twice pushed back and eventually took place in the summer term. This meant playing in much warmer conditions than normal and fitting league games into a tight schedule.
Notre Dame got off to a difficult start and had to show real character to come from behind in their first three games, achieving two draws and a win. Performances improved through hard work in training and learning from mistakes, and a string of wins were put together including a 7-2 victory away at New College Pontefract and a 4-1 win at home to local rivals Leeds City College.”
This set up a league title decider at home to Selby College, who went in to the game one point ahead of Notre Dame, meaning only a win would be good enough to secure the trophy. An attacking side was selected and Notre Dame found themselves 3-0 up at half time thanks to goals from Rio Hairyes, Sam Bentley, and Jack Teahan. Selby came out stronger in the second half, having lots of success from set pieces and scoring a penalty almost immediately after the restart. Notre Dame, however, were able to keep their noses in front, and the game eventually finished 5-3 with another goal from Jack Teahan as well as a tidy finish from Malaki Mason.
The win secured the league title for Notre Dame, who went unbeaten throughout the whole academic year, scoring 40 goals along the way - a fantastic achievement.”
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