16/12/2015
The last post. No - not the song, but the final article this page shall exclusively see is Renny Anto's season summary, as (though it is excruciatingly late!) we can still confirm an early publication of the Suttonian U15 A Season Review!
A big thanks to everyone who has worked behind the scenes to make this page work, including Affan Rashid and Luke Gonsalves who have helped with graphics, and Kavi Mahendran, Jack Smillie, Henry Dalton-Stone and Renny Anto who have contributed articles and all the interviewees and of course the two teams themselves - well picked and managed by Mr Blunt throughout the season.
I'm Aki Lunn and it's been a pleasure to run this page throughout this year group's last season as a team. It's been a great 4 years, and everyone involved should be proud of themselves.
But - without further ado - Renny's season review...
Player of the season: Tinniswood (C)
Top goalscorer: Dalton-Stone (20)
U15 A team Season Report
As we embarked on our final year playing as a year group everyone wanted to finish on a high. Being called "the best team the school's ever had" we had a high expectations for the season. Surprisingly, even though we had won the WTSSG league and reached the semi finals of the district cup (which was poor by our standards), this happened to be our worst season as a team as we had lost six games this season. In the previous seasons, we had only lost 3 games in Year 9, 4 games in Year 8 and 3 games in Year 7. However, the team did seem to improve especially in defensive areas however that may have staggered the development of Fashoro and Dalton-Stone who accumulated 30 less goals than they did last season with Fashoro getting only 16 and Dalton-Stone with only 20.
The season began with the traditional fixture at Hampton and being the only school team that usually beats them or draws against them, we fancied our chances but the game ended in a 1-1 draw. Defeating rivals Wilsons in a seven goal thriller with Fashoro scoring a definite contender for goal of the season curling a shot from 35 yards with the perfect power and pace to direct the ball in the top right corner to make the score 3-3. And to top it off Fadipe got the winner in the dying seconds of the game to make it 4-3. Our form continued as we beat a good Glyn side who had reached the National cup Quarter finals a couple of years ago which is a very good achievement. another great match was against Cheam where a 9-a-side match was played as they didn't have enough players but we proved we can beat anyone in anyway as we came back from 3-1 down to win 4-3. As the season progressed Sutton remained unbeaten and with the style of football that we were playing and the way we dominated teams it seemed that we were going to go the season unbeaten. However, along came Ardingly who scraped a very lucky 3-2 victory and ended the run. Mr Blunt's style of play was questioned by a few players and he seemed to adapt his long ball and defensive style (similar to Tony Pulis) to work with our fast flowing passing game that had given us the fame that we earned throughout the years.
As always there were weather problems, but it didn't affect the season much except for maybe the change of footwear. We sat at the top of the WTSSG league but finally the District Cup quarter final came against Greenshaw and we qualified into the next round with an easy 4-1 win.
A surprise match was organised by the PE staff as the elite performers of our team were to play in a match against the First XI in which turned out to be a thrilling game however 1'st XI size and strength was too much for the Select XI (as we were called) as they grinded out a lucky 3-2 win.
As the season progressed Sutton seemed great in form but it was soon ended by a strong Wilsonns side who beat us 2-1 in a very physical game. It seemed that defeat was only just the beginning as Sutton suffered a string of games with draws and also picking up another defeat against a poor Latymer side that we should have easily beat by nine or ten goals. It was the worst time for dry patch to hit us as we had pivotal matches coming up including the District Cup semi-final against Cheam High. Too make a long story short it was a total nightmare and we got knocked out losing 2-0. It was only getting worse as we suffered a very unlucky 1-0 defeat to Hampton even though we totally domianted but it elucidated that luck wasn't in our favour. As our final league game of our season approached against Wimbledon College surely after all these years as such a formidable team under Mr Bangs, Mr Hewitt, Mr Finlinson and Mr Blunt we had to end our last game on a high but even though we came from 2 goals behind it wasn't to be ur day as we lost 3-2. An emotional speech from Mr Blunt cheered us up as we realised that this wasn't to be our lst game as a team as we had a few more District Cup games in Year 11.
We may have lost the last few games of the season but the one thing that we will never lose is our title of being called the best team of all time in SGS history. A big thanks to all the fans that turned up to the games even in a darkest of days and a big thanks to Mr Blunt who trained us Thursdays after school and managed us on a Saturday morning. There will still be many big things to come from us in the next few years and now all you can do is wait and see.
By Renny Anto