LOCAL primary schools faced each other in a feast of football at Helensburgh’s annual Christian Aid tournament at Hermitage Academy with Colgrain coming out on top.

This year’s competition, as always facilitated by Ardencaple FC and produced a day full of entertaining football, thrilling matches and great goals.

The group phase comprised of two round-robin groups; Lomond, Kilcreggan, Cardross and Hermitage going into pot 1 and Colgrain, Rosneath, John Logie Baird, St Josephs and Rhu in pot 2.

After a series of pulsating qualifiers it was Colgrain and Cardross that emerged as undefeated winners from their respective groups along with Hermitage and St Josephs as runners-up to contest the two semi-finals.

Both Colgrain and Cardross proved too strong for their opposition and progressed through to meet in the final.

A large crowd were treated to a tremendous display from both sides in an exciting final. Cardross threatened on several occasions but were thwarted by a brilliant performance from the opposition goalie, and Colgrain’s superiority eventually shone through as they scored two fine goals to win 2-0 and lift this year’s trophy.

Ardencaple FC Chairman, Craig Holborn, is responsible for selecting the Player of the Tournament which and this year’s award went to Ryan Grant of Colgrain. who produced a consistent set of performances throughout the evening that included some fine, composed play and strong tackling not to mention chipping in with a fantastic goal in the semi-final.

Craig said: “Once again, a fantastic evening and overall a brilliant display of skill and sporting behaviour from our local schoolchildren." A massive thank you to Euan Birss and my fellow committee members at Ardencaple FC, to Eileen Drummond and her colleagues from Christian Aid and to Martin Caldwell from Active Schools for all their hard work in making this happen. We are also very grateful to our referees, to Martin O’Brien-Barden for taking photos, and to Andy Black for recording the scores. Finally, our thanks to Helensburgh Subaru for their sponsorship of the event, donating a superb raffle prize the form of a remote controlled Subaru car.”