During the semester holidays the U13 Blue (with members of the U13 Whites) participated in the highly anticipated Kanga Cup. The opening ceremony took place at the District Athletics Arena. There were hundreds of teams there to witness the beginning of the competition including teams from all over Australia and New Zealand. South Korea and Singapore also entered a few teams. We all stood and sang the countries national anthems. After the ceremony, we took a team picture with the South Korean team and left to go home and prepare for the competition.
The next day in freezing conditions we played the Tahmoor Taipans from NSW, with a heavy loss we realized this wasn’t going to be easy. We were very lucky as our coach Andrew Fairhall had experience with the Kanga Cup and we had our own marquee, food, snacks and even a barbeque to use while we waited for our games. Our next game was against a NSW team, Westbridge FC who were an extremely regular team to the Kanga Cup. The game went a bit better for us but still a loss.
On Wednesday we played the two Canberra development squad teams. With our heads held high we all dyed our hair pink, blue, orange, yellow or green we felt the event was more of an experience than a competition. Our next game against Western Molonglo, this team was playing in our league but were the division up, so we began to think that maybe we could win this one. Once again we were defeated, but this time with a casualty. Ethan Parker our goalkeeper went to slide in for a save but instead saved it and received a stud in the leg. At first, he hadn’t noticed but one of the players came over and gasped which led to him realizing an entire chunk of his leg was laying on the dirt. He ended up having to go to the hospital and have stitches. Thankfully he is alright and well now.
As we knew we weren’t going to win, but our team had lots of laughs which involved, trying to score, getting scored on and repeat. With us losing 10+ to 0 we stopped the opposition from going into the next division of the cup. We left the Kanga Cup with smiles and funny stories and overall, we all had a great time and a great experience meeting different cultures whilst doing what we love. Soccer.
A big thanks to Mr Andrew Fairhall who organised a wonderful experience for us all as well as making this whole thing possible for us to compete. Also for the support of Lucas Fairhall! A big thanks to Ms Wilson for doing the registration work to make sure we represented the school officially. Last of all and probably the biggest is the parents, friends and family who came and supported us, cheered when we scored and told us to keep trying when we conceded and got us to and from the cup. None of this would be possible without you.
Hayden Martinussen and the AWESOME U13’s Team