The Whitehaven AFC u12 Lionesses were recognised and presented with the Whitehaven News Special Achievement Award at their recent Presentation Night!!
The Whitehaven News Award is special achievement award and was set up in 2015 to recognise one girl, from all the club's girls teams, who has gone above and beyond or had done something over the season that promotes our values and beliefs as a club. Each season, coaches either nominate players or take nominations from parents, players or supporters. They then pick a winner. In its inaugural year, the award was handed to Calla Grieves-Mattinson after she stood up against a bully, last years winner Erin Duffy had a serious family illness but still maintained 100% attendance record, worked extremely hard to improve herself to make her family proud and helped raise money for charity.
Defensive Rock Emmi Davidson (left) Captain Ella Robinson (middle) and Top Scorer Eden Herherington (right) with the Whitehaven News Trophy!
This year when the coaches came together to pick a winner, it was decided that there was a team who had a history making season in the Girls teams and had achieved so much in one season that had never been done before, including being crowned the clubs first ever County Cup Champions in the Youth Girls sides.
The Whitehaven u12 girls went through out the full season winning all 23 league, league cup and county cup games, not losing or even drawing a game.From the 23 games the Whitehaven Girls scored a massive 127 goals, conceding only 20 goals along the way, with the teams top scorer scoring an impressive 46 goals in the 23 games played.
The team were crowned the first ever CFA County Cup Winners in the Girls Youth History since the girls teams were formed back in 2011, by also being dominate throughout the group stages and KO phases.
The Girls winning the first ever CFA County Cup for the Girls Teams!
Indoors the girls were also extremely good, in this the girls were split into 2 teams for game time as 5v5, and picked up the Futsal Competition Winners and Runner up prize.
The most impressive feet for the coaches of this team and part of the reason the team was selected for the award was the fact that all 16 girls registered to the club played at least half of all competetive games and every girl won a cup competition, showing that even at 7v7 where team rotation was needed, it wasn’t just down to one or two players for their success but a full squad who all pushed each other on throughout the season.
After the season concluded the team didn’t rest on their laurels and have been equally as impressive in the out of season Tournaments by winning 5 Festivals & being Runners up in a further 3 and Semi Finalists twice. Coach Neil Hetherington could not be prouder of the team. He said “At the start of the season I would never have dreamt we would have achieved what we have. The girls have been fantastic and deserve all the rewards they have received this year purely for their hard work. The football the girls try and play is from back to front on the dec which is a pleasure to watch. I would just like thank Eric Parkin for all his hard graft with the team, all the parents for there continual support. The Sunnyhill In Whitehaven for being a fantastic sponsor & Rob Campbell for nominating us for this award. But most of all the amazing the girls we have in this special squad.
Whitehaven AFC Girls Rep & Spokesman Rob Campbell who presented the award to the team at their presentation night said ‘It was a privilege to present this award to such a fantastic team within our club and recognise them for such a great season. We normally only award the Special Award to an individual and whilst as a club we don’t just measure success by the trophies we win, we felt in this instance it was such an incredible achievement that it couldn’t go unrecognised. What Neil & Eric have done with the girls has been first class and the girls are not just very talented young lasses but they are also extremely hard working and their dedication, commitment and overall attitude is first class and they should all be extremely proud of themselves’