Saturday morning –

The eight Holywood Boys teams’ leave Belfast for Stranraer at 8:00am. 
Everyone is shattered.
We then make the boring 4 hour coach journey to Blackpool.


Saturday afternoon –

We arrived in Pontins (the massive camp where we stayed) at around 4pm.
We spent most of Saturday night just chillin.  Some lads went on the Go-Karts, some played a few games of snooker, and some went to the Pleasure Beach as this was the only night it closed AFTER 5pm!
Our team was then told what teams we drew in the group stages.  Grosvenor Youth were tipped to win the trophy for the 2nd time in 3 years, we wanted to prove everyone wrong.

Group A Under 15 Cup looked like this:

Cape Youth  (East London)  England
Whickham Fellside  (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne)  England
Newhill  (West Belfast) Northern Ireland
St Oliver Plunkett  (West Belfast)  Northern Ireland
Holywood Boys  (Holywood Co.Down)  Northern Ireland


Sunday afternoon –

The 15’s kicked off the tournament in style with a convincing 7-0 win over the East London, Arastifarian,  outfit, Cape Youth.  They weren’t too pleased at losing to say the least!  They even called us racist because we only had one coloured person in our team! 
Our “Intercontinental Style team” included 1 black, 1 chinese, 7 catholic, 7 protestant.  We even had a Celtic shirt side-by-side with Rangers shirt in one of our challeys!

The previous match took a lot out of the lads and the tiredness showed in the St Oliver Plunkett match.  The game finished 1-1 with Lalou Paris scoring the vital equalizer in the last few minutes.


Monday Afternoon –
 
We went into our match with Newhill able to rest a few key players but were a little over-confident and only having the one goal to our advantage in the 1st half.  However the 2nd half told a totally different story as Holywood stepped up a gear and came out victorious with a 7-0 win yet again.

Our final group game meant that if we won then we would win the group and it was against a very good Whickham Fellside team from Newcastle.  The Geordies battled well but Holywood’s football at times was just too much for them.  The 15’s were cheered on by chants of “Oh Fluffy Sheep are Wonderful” from the “Mad” Under 16 team! 
The valuable 3-2 win drew us against Belfast Juniors in the Semi-Finals.


Tuesday morning –
 
No doubt about it, the Under 15’s were out to win the cup after reaching the Semi’s 2 years ago only to be knocked our by scousers!

Belfast Juniors showed the old West Belfast bite and their offside trap annoyed Holywood throughout the match, but a Jonny Nixon goal eased some Holywood nerves in the 2nd half and the game was rounded off in style from a free-kick by Connor Johnston that even David Beckham would have been proud of scoring!  The 2-0 win was well deserved in the end.
We had reached the Promise Land at last!!


Tuesday late-afternoon –

The time of the final was put back 2 hours because the other Semi Final between S.O.P.Y.C and Grosvenor Youth had gone into Extra-Time then penalties, which Plunkett dramatically won.
Our team wanted Plunkett in the final as we knew we had the potential to destroy them, and that’s exactly what we did.
2 goals from Jonny Nixon and 2 goals from Lalou Paris secured the 4-1 win AND the cup for Holywood Boys.


Tuesday night –
 
Awards Night and Holywood Boys had cleaned up!  Us, along with the 12’s, 13’s, 14’s, had all won our respective cups and the Under 10 team reached the final of the Under 11 cup!!!

As our team went up to collect our award all you could hear was the “boo’s” from all the teams that were there, all 64 of them!
We were only hated coz we were just too good for the rest which is true!

The lads then celebrated in the town only to come back and find a brick smashed through our window  challey by most of the Cape Youth team (the team we humiliated 7-0!). - I wonder why!??


Wednesday morning –
 
The tournament was over and we then had to make the long journey back home but it was all worth it coz…..

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOLYWOOD BOYS IN BLACKPOOL
By Ryan Hamilton