VICTORIA College Preparatory School’s football team are through to the next round of the English Schools Football Association Championships after winning the Channel Island Schools Championships, beating fellow Jersey side and former ESFA national champions St Clement 1-0 in a rain-sodden final in Guernsey.
Oscar Mountford, 11, starred on the day, netting the winning goals in both the semi-final and final for his side.
Over 5,000 schools compete for the prestigious ESFA Championship, with Ben Silva’s VCP a one step closer to glory. The coach said: “The boys performed extremely well to win this stage of the competition.
“We did well to qualify as one of the best Jersey schools and to come over here and win the Channel Island stage and qualify for the regional stage is an amazing achievement.
“Everyone played their socks off and put in such a brilliant shift throughout, I couldn’t be prouder of them and we’re all buzzing to prepare for the next stage.
“The other Jersey schools did extremely well also. St Clement’s are former national champions themselves and were a really tough match in the final.
“For St Michael’s and De La Salle to compete to such a high standard as well is a great testament to how good the standard of school football is in the Island.”
VCP earned their spot in the Channel Islands stage of the competition as winners of the Jersey Schools Championship, with Jersey schools St Michael’s, St Clement’s and De La Salle also qualifying.
Four Sarnian schools joined the four Caesarean sides across two groups.
Group A saw De La Salle and St Michael’s drawn with Guernsey’s Castel and Vale, while Group B hosted VCP and St Clement’s, along with Sarnian contingents Notre Dame and Blanchelande College.
St Michael’s won Group A to qualify for the semi-finals with Castel also progressing in second place, while VCP topped Group B with St Clement’s runners-up.
Prep cruised through the group stage, with a goalless draw against St Clement’s, while comfortably beating both Sarnian schools 7-0 and 2-0 respectively.
Drawn against Castel in the semi-finals, Prep secured a tight 1-0 victory with Mountford’s strike.
The opposite semi saw an all-Jersey clash between St Clement’s and St Michael’s, with the former coming out on top.
The highly competitive final, between a pair of former national champions, eventually fell the way of Silva’s team again through Mountford to spark jubilation for the yellow and black contingent, who remarkably concluded the tournament without conceding a single goal.
VCP are now set to take part in the South West Regional stage of the tournament in March, and a win there would send the Islanders to the final stage against the eight best schools in the country, in a bid to become National Schools Championship winners.
This is an achievement that VCP’s head of PE, Ben Silva, knows only too well, having led the school side to two national championship victories and a staggering five finals in the last eight years.
Bearing in mind that no other school has made the final more than twice, Silva and VCP continue to enjoy unprecedented success in school football.
VCP squad: Owen Wills, Joe Fox, Harvey Ingram, Taylor Nelson, Oscar Mountford, Nate Opio, Ethan Griffiths, Jonty Porter.
