Braidhurst under 15s football team narrowly missed out on winning the British Isles Cup after losing the final 4-2 on penalties.

The boys, as Scottish cup winners, were taking part in the Allen McKinstry Cup.  This is a tournament where the cup winners from all of the home nations, plus the Republic of Ireland play to see who can be crowned overall champions.  The format of the tournament is that each team plays two games then a mini league is drawn up based on results with the top two playing for the cup, the next two play for third and fourth place, etc.  For this system to work a sixth team is included which is always provided by the host nation.

This year the finals were held in Northern Ireland, with all of the games being played at the Billy Neill Soccer Centre of Excellence.  Braidhurst got themselves off to a wonderful start with a 3 – 0 victory over St Teilo’s High, Cardiff.  The next day Braidhurst found themselves 1 – 0 down at half-time to Our Lady and St Patrick’s College, Knock.  After ringing the changes with four substitutions they were soon level, eventually overpowering the opposition and running out 4 – 1 victors.

Saturday morning saw Braidhurst take to the field for the final against Calasanctius College, Oranmore – Co. Galway.  The Irish side got off to the best possible start scoring in under six seconds straight from kick-off, a lobbed shot dropped over the Braidhurst goalkeeper into the net.  This spurred the Braidy boys on and they were level within two minutes.  From then on the game was dominated by Braidhurst.  The boys created chance after chance but agonisingly they could not get the ball into the net.  Calasanctius defended strongly but never troubled the Braidhurst goal for the rest of the match.  Full-time saw the game finish 1 – 1 and a dreaded penalty shoot-out took place.  All credit to the Irish players who converted their penalties with great skill, and their goal keeper who managed to save two Braidhurst penalties, winning them British Isles Cup.

The Braidhurst boys can be proud of the manner in which they conducted themselves both on and off the pitch.  This was commended by all who watched them play and met them.