NEWCASTLE East End Juniors staged their annual summer under- 15 football festival at the weekend – and walked off with the silverware! East End opened the tournament with a comfortable 2-0 win over Newburn Blues, Ryan Richardson grabbing both goals to secure the points. Northburn Wanderers and Grainger Park Panthers then shared the spoils in a 1-1 draw, while Ashington triumphed 2-1 against Longbenton and Killingworth Barca lost 2-0 to Northburn to complete the first-round fixtures. Newburn earned their first points in the second round, holding on to a one-goal lead against Grainger Park. East End had to come from a goal down to salvage a draw against Ashington, Richardson netting again to bring his tally to three goals in only two games. Richardson could have completed a fantastic comeback in the last minute, only to have a one-on-one saved well by the Northumberland side’s in-form goalkeeper. East End continued their good run of results with victories over Grainger Park (4-0) and Northburn (2-0) to leave them top of the league with 10 points after the first day’s play. Ashington and Northburn shared second spot with seven points each, with the final play-off position occupied by Longbenton. The final round of games began with a basement battle as Grainger sealed a 2-1 verdict over Killingworth Barca. Northburn beat Longbenton 2-1 to consolidate their place in the final. Ashington and East End, now joint top, began to pull away and clinched their places as finalists. Ashington eased past Northburn 1-0 and the hosts overcame Kiliingworth 5-0. As the tournament went into its last set of games, Northburn had secured third place, leaving Newburn, Longbenton and Grainger Park to battle it out for the last available play-off position. Newburn went into their final league game against Ashington knowing a draw could see them through with better goal difference. That all came to nothing, though, as Ashington won to leave Newburn hoping for a draw in the winner-takes-all tie between Grainger Park and Longbenton. That looked likely until, with eight minutes left, a break down the left saw Grainger’s Asadollah Ibrihimi finish to put his side into fourth place. All was not over, however, as Longbenton were awarded a penalty soon afterwards – which was saved by Ryan Adams to book Grainger Park a place in the third-place play offs. The game was a tight affair which looked set to go into extra time – until a last-gasp goal from Daniel Sung secured Northburn third place. The only unbeaten teams battled it out in the final, which promised to be a tight affair after their 1-1 draw in the league stages. Surprisingly, East End laid siege to the Ashington goal from the off, Ryan Richardson netting a hat-trick to cap a fine tournamentt and grab the golden boot. Strikes from Lattimer and Dixon, as well as a fine solo effort from Anthony Gregan wrapped up a 6-0 victory for the hosts, who won the tournament without conceding a single goal from open play. | 
