Dronfield U15s take European honours

Dronfield Town U15s travelled to Spain to play in the Costa Brava football tournament over the Easter weekend - and returned as European champions.

The huge tournament sees teams from all over Europe competing, with 40 teams involved in the U15 group, split into two halves of 20.

Town got through the group stages without any problems, winning all of their games over two days to win the group and reach the quarter-finals.

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Town overcame a strong German side 3-0 in the quarter-finals to set up a semi-final meeting against an Italian team that had also won their group and progressed easily through their quarter-final.

Another slow start saw Town go 1-0 down early on and with games lasting just 20 minutes each way they needed to respond pretty quickly, but halfway through the first-half they smashed home the equaliser and the game was never in doubt from therein, Town eventually winning 6-1.

On to the final and Town faced a local Spanish side with a big group of noisy supporters.

There was only one way to keep them quiet and this time it was Town with an early goal. Despite the opposition’s best efforts there was no way the defence were going to let the lead slip and a further goal early in the second-half wound up a fantastic 2-0 victory.

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The football wasn’t over yet though as Town then faced the winners of the other half, another Italian team, in the Super Cup final.

For the second time that day Town went behind in a game through a penalty but Dronfield kept pressing and eventually the breakthrough came just before half time direct from a free kick.

Chance after chance fell Town’s way but they just couldn’t find the net until with five minutes to go the decisive goal came when good work out wide and a ball into the box was cleverly side footed home.

As the final whistle went the Town players shook hands with a very sporting Italian side before celebrating in style, all 40 of the travelling party belting out the national anthem with pride on the podium.

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Club secretary Darren Bradwell said: “All 14 players did their club and country proud, scoring 36 goals and conceding just 3 on their way to lifting the cups. These lads have got to the final of League and County cups over the last few years and finished top of A division last season but this was the sweetest victory of all, to win a tournament like that on foreign soil is a massive achievement.”

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