U9 boys IAPS Football Festival

8th November 2024

We set off to the train station after lunch on Tuesday 29th October. After a smooth journey, we arrived and hopped on the train! Everyone was excited to head to Nairobi and take part in the IAPS festival. A long journey, and after a good consumption of snacks, we arrived at BGE at 9:30pm. We settled into our rooms and had a good night’s sleep. On Wednesday morning, we consumed a hearty breakfast and set off to complete our English and Maths lessons! Students were extremely focused, and were enthusiastic about completing their work. After a short break, they finished off and enjoyed a tasty lunch! The afternoon saw us watching BGE and Kenton 1st boys teams fight it out in their football fixture. Everyone was given the challenge of watching the players who were playing the position that they would be the following day. We talked about the different positions and learnt a lot from seeing the U13’s play. Following the fixture, we were able to play the BGE U9 team in a training game. We played three thirds, and in each we improved and gelled as a team. After dinner and another good night’s sleep, we awoke with excitement in the air!

Our first match was against Hillcrest and we managed to soak up a lot of pressure from them. They broke away and scored 2 goals, resulting in a 0-2 loss. However, we learnt a lot and really presented well in defence. In our second game we faced a very strong Peponi team. They passed the ball with finesse and their players were forceful in attack! The result showed their dominance. However, we had some moments of good play, taking the ball out of defence, and demonstrating some positive attacking play. Our third game was against Brookhouse. This was our best game of the festival. We passed the ball around the opposition, moving for each other and working to help support each other. In the end, we drew 0-0 and were buzzing at the end of the game. BGR followed in an extremely close game! We played well, and had a couple of opportunities, but with a few minutes to go, BGR scored and took the win. This was the end of the group stages. An extra ‘random’ game was then played and we faced St Andrew’s, Turi. Again, some lovely play, and great defending. Similarly to the BGR game, we held Turi off from scoring until the last minute of the game.

Overall, we had a great trip! Lots of lessons learned and a few aspects of the game to work on. However, all in all, a fantastic experience and we were great at Mrs Welch’s 3 non-negotiables: