A trio of our talented footballers helped their county team to win the national PlayStation Under 14 Inter County Cup for Girls.
Year 8 students Abby Clarke, Lucy Valentine and Beth Macdonald, along with Alder Grange School student Rebecca Beresford, play in the county team.
They won the Northern Counties Schools’ Football Association U14 Girls Inter-County Trophy Final, beating Durham 3-0 and at Stoke City’s home ground they beat cup holders Kent 4-0.
Striker Beth and winger Rebecca were the first Rossendale players on the pitch.
After about seven minutes the ball bounced off a defender and Beth managed to cross the ball to Tiggi Gent to score her first of three goals.
Abby was then substituted on and a further goal was scored by Alyssa Aherne from a corner kick. A further Tiggi goal was ruled offside
A buoyant Lancashire side was joined by Lucy who was substituted on about 10 minutes into the second half.
In the final 10 minutes, Beth played an excellent pass to Tiggi who hit home her third of the match after a great cross by Jessica Simpson – final score 4-0.
Lucy said: “It was the final match for our coach Mike Nadal so we showered him with water. They had some non-alcoholic champagne for us to celebrate with and I got covered in it.
“We had played the harder teams to get the place in the final.”
Beth said: “The Kent side had won three of their matches 5-0, but we were confident that we were going to do it.”
Abby’s contract with Everton and Beth’s with Blackburn have both been renewed, Abby will now be playing with the U16 team while Lucy is continuing to play for Bolton.
However both Beth and Abby are concerned about whether academy players will continue to be allowed to play for their school side and county in the future as there is talk that they will be banned.
The girls are not the only successful footballers at Haslingden High School.
*Year 11 and Year 10 teams who won the Rossendale inter-school competitions.
*Haslingden High School Year 10 students Alfie Edmondson, Thomas Walters, Jake Carr, Ben Hopwood and Benjamin Blythe who all play for Pennine Juniors Black won the North Bury Junior Football League cup final against Rochdale Phoenix 2-0. Alfie was awarded man of the match.
*Haslingden High School Year 7 student, Mackenzie Haynes helped his team Rossendale Valley U12 football team to win their cup final and Year 7 student