Chester le Street Schools' District Team
2021/22
Even though the coronavirus hit grassroots football hard last season, ESFA were able to complete the Danone Sponsored National Competition for district teams. This is a competition which has been been run for many years and one in which Chester-le-Street have been very successful
In previous years, the format has been 7 a side with each county nominating a team to represent them in the regional competition. This involved ten teams meeting in one venue but, of course, large groups are not allowed to meet
Consequently, this season, it is an open 9 a side competition where two teams play each other and the winner progresses to the next round. The competition will be played this season using a similar format
The dates of the early rounds are:
1st Round November 6th
2nd Round November 27th
Our first round match is at home against Wallsend
The Season So Far
An opening friendly match against Derwentside ended up in a narrow 3-2 victory for Chester-le-Street. This was a pleasing performance which showed that, at the very least, the team will prove to be competitive
Another friendly against Darlington built on the previous performance and ended up with a 4-0 victory, the highlight being a hat-trick scored by Alfie Ainsley. However, there were other good performances throughout the team
The first competition of the season came in the form of a three-team tournament - The John Robson Trophy. District matches are usually tight and all three games proved to be just that. Our first match against Darlingon produced few chances but a fine strike from Josh Silvester won the match for us. Darlington and Sunderland produced another hard fought game and a last minute winner for Sunderland took them through to play Chester-le-Street in the decider
One goal was enough to win the game and the trophy and it was Sunderland who scored the vital goal when we failed to clear a corner