MRFC U9's Saracens 7/11/99

Maidenhead under 9’s had another successful tournament at the Saracens training ground in Southgate North London. The squad of 12 boys were faced with a difficult day facing teams from afar as Yorkshire and Wales. The team had a convincing win in the first match against the home team, Saracens winning 25-0. The following match was something of a local derby, facing Amersham and Chiltern, Maidenhead lost 5-0. The repercussions of this were to be felt later on in the Tournament. The following two matches were again convincingly won. Then the defeat against Amersham and Chiltern came back to haunt us. Going into the final round of matches, Maidenhead needed to win their last match of the day against Caldicot by five tries plus however many tries Sandal beat Amersham and Chiltern by. Sandal were victorious winning 15-0. This meant the Maidenhead had to win by eight clear tries. The boys were up to the task however, winning comfortably 50-0!

The day was ended off with the award ceremony, and although we were not certain the consensus was that Maidenhead under 9’s had won. There was a shock when it was announced that Sandal had won the age group. A protest was lodged and the scores recalculated. An error was discovered and Maidenhead was awarded the victory. Sandal complained because they had received their winners medals and were refusing to get them back from their team. They could not argue about returning the cup, because last years under 9’s forgot to bring it back! After some skilful negotiations between respective team coaches we agreed on a draw.