Today was our final football day and what an eventful day it was for everyone involved in what was a rain driven day!

Please find below a round -up of all our teams from Saturday's fixtures.

Steve King's Centre of Excellence Squad today had 3 fixtures including the final which they won on a penalty shoot-out! An earlier 2-4 defeat v Lyseng IF in the group stages did not prevent the blues from reaching the final and again they met Lyseng IF, however this time won via penalties! Their other group game was won 2-1.

A 1-1 draw in the final with Under 9 Oliver Johnson equalising in the final five minutes saw the game reach penalities in which Fogg and Brown scored. Lyseng scored their first pen and missed their second, which meant Humphries scoring would win us the cup. Unfortunately his pen was saved, although Lyseng also missed their third which gave the blues their first Norhalne Elite Cup victory!
Congratulations goes to the Centre of Excellence team for winning the tournament!

James Powell's squad today finished the tournament on a high by finishing 2nd in the tournament. The group was structured in a league format and although placed 4th at the start of today, they won 6-1, 9-4, 4-0 and 3-0 to finish as runners-up to last year and this years champions Overlund IF.

James Powell has been full of praise for the way the team have performed both on and off the pitch and they also deserve everyone's congratulations!

Ben Duncan's Squad this morning had one final group game and following an impressive victory against Bagsvaerd who were top at the start of the day by 5-1, meant the blues over took them to finish top of the group and enter a new league against all the other league champions. This was a great achievement.

The new league consisted of Sparta Rotterdam, KB 81 and Houlkaer. Unfortunately despite the best efforts of the team, the blues fell just short of winning a game, by being defeated 5-3 in each game. Sparta Rotterdam eventually won the tournament and felt Southend had given them their best fixture, so well done to all the squad on a great effort.

Ginge's squad had 2 fixtures today, both against opposition they had played before, however the two toughest teams they had faced so this was going to be a tough challenge ahead. The first fixture was v Lyseng and despite going a goal down, we equalised through Kiah Froud to level at half-time. Goals from Jack Gosling and Max Reeve eventually saw us win 3-1 when only on Thursday we lost 2-5 to them.

This meant victory in our next fixture v Brondby would give us the title. A tense and tough fixture saw us again take the lead through Max Day, although Brondby equalised and had us worried in stages of the game. Great Goalkeeping and last ditch defending kept us in the game before late goals through Max Day and Max Reeve won us the title!
Congratulations to the Under 9 Squad for their performances and winning the U9A Norhalne Cup!

All the players have been buzzing throughout the day and are delighted with their performances and achievements. Some fun free-time and dinner, followed our very own Internal 6 a-side tournament in the sporthall where all our players mixed together to show off their skills once again. This went on late in the evening, before eventually going to sleep. All the players are very tired following a great day and now have Farrup Sommerland to look forward too tomorrow.

It has been a great Norhalne Cup for Southend and the best the club have recorded in terms of results. With the U9's and the U10 CofE winning and our two other sides finishing 2nd and 4th respectively, it demonstrates the excellent performances put in by the players throughout the tour.

All the scores and final placements can be found by logging on to the Norhalne Cup website www.norhalne-cup.dk

With regards to travel, we have heard they may be delays following the 'Volcano Ash' moving back into our Airspace, however hope we can get back safe and sound before any cancellations are announced. We will await any further news and trust all will be ok, so fingers crossed please!

Marc Tracy