Frost is delighted that Megan Cannell has agreed to be the editor of Young Voices. Megan is fifteen. She aspires to be a Forensic Scientist and loves reading and writing. After a holiday sailing off Greece, she has added that sport to her list of likes. Megan lives near London and hopes that more young writers will add their voices to Frost magazine’s new column. Just send to Frost@margaret-graham.com
For our first contribution we are excited to have Rowan’s story of his Chinnor six-a-side team’s success.
Perhaps this sport should make the Olympics? By Rowan Evans aged 12
Our manager thought it would be a good idea to put me in the top team for our annual Chinnor six-a-side football tournament. But was it?
We’d already played in the Risborough Tournament, and hadn’t been successful. In fact neither of the Chinnor teams made it past the group stages. What made it doubly disappointing was that we had won the Risborough Tournament for the past three years. All right, the weather hadn’t been good for training, but it had been much the same for everyone. So would we do any better this time?
As the six-a-side tournament was only a week away it was going to be tricky. The manager chose his team, and the coaches chose theirs. We had time for just one more training session. The day arrived. It was raining but by now we were used to it. We had to play four matches as there were five teams in our group. We won two, drew one, lost one, which brought us to second place.
We were so pleased as we were through to the quarter-finals. Now we had to play the group leaders from another group. The score at the end of the game was… 2-0 to us! We were in the semi-finals.
Our manager gave us a team talk, and told us to keep on doing what we were doing – so we did.
We played a Risborough side – and it was the side we could never beat. Believe it or not, Chinnor Six a Side Team were into the final. Another team talk, the same advice as last time – keep doing what you’re doing. So yet again – we did.
We played Chalfont. The weather was cloudy and a bit cold. The game was nerve wracking. We scored first but they equalised one minute before the final whistle. Arghhh. It was a draw, which meant we had to go into extra time. Extra time didn’t alter the score, so it would go down to penalties. But not before I was subbed off in favour of a good penalty taker with a rocket of a left foot.
But would this late substitution be enough?
Chalfont scored their first penalty, but we equalised. Chalfont took again… but our goalkeeper made a great fingertip save. If we scored with out next penalty kick we would win the tournament… Goal. Yes, yes. We’d done it.
The trophy was ours. We were soaked, muddy but the winners of the Chinnor Six-a-Side tournament 2016. We were sprayed with champagne as we celebrated – what could be better.