Barming Tournament

Report by John Hubbard

Maidstone Rangers started their tournament season by entering two teams into the Barming Youth tournament which took the format of a league, seven games to play. In pretty poor conditions and facing teams mainly from Division 1 & 2, the only other third division team was Holtwood, the resounding league winners this year, Maidstone Rangers A team excelled by finishing second and received runners-up awards. Maidstone Rangers B team finished in a creditable mid table position.

Maidstone Rangers A managed to beat both Coxheath B and Blue Eagles A (the Consolation Final victors) 2 - 0 and 1 - 0 respectively whilst the highlight for the B team was a 3 - 0 victory over their Consolation Cup Final opponents Blue Eagles A.

Another highlight was the match between the A & B team. It finished in a hard fought 1 - 1 draw which was to be fair the correct result, both teams playing some extremely good attacking football.

The games against Holtwood again displayed our footballing abilities with the A team winning 1 - 0 and the B team achieving a goalless draw.

To put these performances into perspective and to show that our footballing abilities run throughout the squad these results were gained with every member of the playing squad getting their own fair share of on-field time.

So well done boys for the effort that you put into today I think we got our just rewards today and I can only see this helping to build our confidence for the upcoming tournaments and next season.

Also a special thank you to the parents for providing a good level of noise on the touch line even in the atrocious conditions on what was a long afternoon!

I've not mentioned anybody by name up to now (mainly due to my memory problems but also to my belief it was team performances today) but feel that I have to say that you were never going to get a free kick for that dive Ivan!