High octane affair

While the final day of the Championship in England served up its fair share of thrills, spills, controversy and glorious promotion to the Premiership for Hull City, the excitement generated by the inaugural Charles Russell U12 season in Bahrain easily matched it.

Last Wednesday featured the Charles Russell League Cup contest with eight teams divided into equal pools of four teams of nine players hosted at the Bahrain Rugby Football Club. 

The DHL Wanderers, Rugby Club and British School Academy both brought two teams each with the competition completed by sides from the Dilmun Club and British Club.

The final was a thrilling affair between two of the most evenly matched teams, deservedly facing off against each other. 

With the sun setting on the tournament, Rugby Club’s first team centre forward Aidan Shretta expertly brought the ball down on the right edge of the penalty box before beating two Dilmun Club defenders and blasting the ball into the net past the unsighted goalkeeper, Gary Prins.

If the vocal crowd thought he had finished they were mistaken. Sensing an opportunity from the left-wing, Shretta launched himself at a cross that was bound for the keeper’s arms. Flicking the outside of his boot inventively at the ball, his interception looped into the back of the net.

Holding a comfortable 2-0 lead the Rugby Club appeared content to pass the ball around with Jack Broughton in the Dilmun defence snuffing out any lingering threats. On the odd occasion that the Dilly boys threatened the Rugby Club goal the towering presence of Angus Winning and safe hands of Jack Bonner were equal to the task.

Dilmun appeared unable to bring their wingers into the match to dominate the opposition as they had in reaching the final. However, an individual moment of brilliance from the irrepressible Robbie Mack turned the game. Bringing the ball under control near the half way line he twisted and turned before unleashing a thunderbolt.

This ignited the Dilmun players, instilling them with a new-found belief and they pressed persistently although were unable to find their way past a resolute back line.

It was this latter performance that demonstrated why Dilmun had deservedly reached the final. Gary Prins was excellent in goal with Broughton strong in his leadership of the defence while hotshot Ollie Borrodell-Brown provided pace from the wings and moved well into gaps created by the tireless running off-the-ball by forward Stan Szecowka.

Both the Dilmun and Rugby Club had eased comfortably into the final with 3-0 wins over the British Club and British School Academy 1 respectively.

In the Plate competition, results in the earlier matches suggested a closely fought contest between the DHL Wanderers Yellow and the British School Academy (BSA) B team. The Wanderers hit the woodwork frequently in losing to Dilmun and British School A in the group stages before easing past their colleagues, Wanderers Blue, in the plate semi-finals.

BSA B’s tenacious tackling and organisation saw them narrowly defeated by the Rugby Club and miss out to the British Club to qualify for the plate. They faced a tough semi-final against the Rugby Club B, scoring the winner in the dying seconds, prompting several laps of the pitch from their celebrating players.

That late drama perhaps cost them in the final as George Axtell settled the Wanderers nerves, drilling a trademark long-range shot into the bottom corner before a clinical hat-trick from Olly Bloodworth sealed matters, the last goal being a delightful lob. However, even he was eclipsed in the glamour stakes by Harry Evans who, collecting the ball wide on the left, ghosted past two defenders and then a third to leave him with only the goalkeeper to beat. Shaping to shoot to his right he dummied before dragging the ball back and coolly slotted into an unguarded net.

The trophies and medals for the participants were presented on behalf of sponsors, Charles Russell’s head of the Middle East and North Africa, Clive Hopewell.

The final round of the league season, also sponsored by Charles Russell, came several days later with a top of the table clash between the undefeated Rugby Club and second-placed Dilmun, with the latter requiring a large victory to compensate for an earlier defeat.

Dilmun took the lead early in the match although the Rugby Club responded with three unanswered goals to take the inaugural title.

Controversy raged when the players were called back on to the pitch for a further couple of minutes of play after a Rugby Club supporter protested, with his team 1-0 down, that the referee had blown too early to end the first quarter.

Disquiet between the two clubs has raged since an early season match which the Dilly won convincingly was ruled to be null and void because of accusations in the local press that the club had allegedly played an over-age player.