A super year 3 Horsham Area Primary Schools open football tournament tonight at the Tanbridge astroturf with eight teams from seven schools contesting it. Well done to North Heath School for racking up five straight victories without conceding a goal and scoring plenty to take the honours.

North Heath and Kingslea both scored wins in their first two matches of the first phase Group A so whilst they were both assured of Top Tier qualification by the time they met the group winner would theoretically get an easier semi-final. All set for a tense affair but reality delivered an anti-climax with North Heath beating the second best team in the group 5-0 to grandstand their dominance.

Group B was a much tighter affair. Leechpool A threatened to storm it but in their last match unbeaten but winless St Robert Southwell with two goalless draws stole the show with an impressive 2-0 victory to topple the Leechies on goal difference. Steyning’s late goal to beat Shelley meant they suffered the harsh fate of achieving 10 points but still failing to get qualify to the top tier, falling one point short of the other two.

So to the second phase play-off games. North Heath despatched Leechpool A with a confident 2-0 win whilst St Robert Southwell prevailed over Kingslea courtesy of sudden-death penalties after finishing scoreless. Leechpool A beat Kingslea for the consolation of third place and in the final North Heath finished with the aplomb they had showed throughout the night, twice breaching a St Robert Southwell defence that had not conceded all night to that point.

Steyning beat Shelley 1-0 in the Lower Tier decider.

RESULTS