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Thirteen boys and six adults made up the party for our Easter tour this year.

We caught the Eurostar to Paris on Thursday evening, picked up three MPV’s on arrival which then took us to our villa for 11.30pm. It was a funny old house with loads of rooms, a couple of big balconies overlooking the valley and right next to a large shopping centre and supermarket.

Everyone got a fair nights sleep and we awoke on Friday with a free day before the start of our tournament in Saturday. We spent the day visiting the tournament venue which was about 30 mins from our villa, getting lost, waiting for Phil, then going to see the Eiffel tower.

After an early night on Friday we were all on our way to the tournament in pretty cold and wet weather on the Saturday for our first game at 11.20 against the tournament hosts.

The group games were on Saturday and Sunday, the finals on the Monday.

After a miserable days weather on Friday, Saturday’s and Sunday’s weather was bright and mostly clear.

Looking at some of the opposition teams was daunting. They were all at least one year older, many of them two years older. The smallest players in some teams were equal in size to the largest players in ours, the difference in physical capability was enormous. But this didn’t affect the boys as they out-played every team in our group over 5 games to earn a knockout place against the winners of the other group in the semis.

The Group games earned us the respect and support of the organisers, the other teams and many spectators who found it hard to believe the age of the boys.

The only game that we were second best was a game that we drew against the ultimate tournament winners, only losing on penalties.

It was an incredible feat to play seven games, of which we dominated five, never losing (except on penalties) to some very good, very big U15 teams.

Our defence and keeper were as solid as always, conceding just one goal in seven games. Our midfielders gave a great account of themselves, winning challenges against giants and passing their way around the opposition, and our wide players and forwards were good enough to beat some monstrous defenders, create some great opportunities and score some excellent goals.

The only downer of the tour was an horrific injury that Jed endured after a nasty head clash. Jed suffered bad concussion, spent the night in hospital and will take some time to recover.

The parents were great – everyone put their hand in to shopping, cooking cleaning and poker. Paul’s driving was excellent despite the series of rubbish co-pilots, and his navigational skills were second to none.

All of the boys played with their hearts on their sleeves, overcoming the huge physical disadvantage with the GAS “never say die” spirit and their great football style. Two boys were especially exceptional:

Sean O’toole – showed he can be the most dangerous attacking player in the league – time and time again beating bigger and faster players to create goal scoring opportunities and scoring a peach of a goal himself.

Luke Giles – Player of the tournament – Luke won many more challenges in midfield than he lost against the humungous opposition, he made great decisions as to when to go short and when to go long, some great passing and won many aerial challenges. Over this tournament Luke has showed the improvements in his game an he is fast developing into an awesome midfielder.

Thanks to all the boys who were well behaved and great ambassadors for English Football.

Thanks to the parents who did so much to make this such a smooth running event.