Sidmouth Warriors Under-14s were at their impressive best as they travelled across to Ottery St Mary to play in the Otters’ annual youth tournament and returned with the Under-14 winners’ trophy!

In the group stages, Warriors proved to be unbeatable as they sailed through five matches keeping clean sheets in four of them.

That saw them move slickly into the knock-out phase of the competition and, first up, Warriors faced tournament favourites Exmouth Red. A close contest was settled by just the one goal, but what a goal it was – a ‘thunderbolt’ of a strike from Connor Brown and, once ahead, Warriors closed the game out in real style.

In their semi-final match, Warriors controlled things from start to finish.

A key feature of a fine all-round performance was the shift from Benedict Teague on the wing which played a key part in Connor Brown netting twice.

In the final, Warriors were up against Exmouth Yellow and, once again, began well and took a deserved lead with a clinical finish with another Teague-Brown exchange.

Exmouth hit back and, with the game still locked at 1-1 at the end of normal time the match went into ‘golden goal’ extra-time.

However, only two additional minutes of play were required as a long throw from Christian Teague was met with a powerful Joe Ashby header to seal victory for Sidmouth. Cue massive celebrations!

Christian Teague and Alex Bennett were outstanding in defence all day, but all players found their top form to bring home the trophy for Sidmouth.

Victory was well deserved for their positive play - they were the only team to score in open play in any of the knock-out games and they kept six clean sheets in their eight fixtures on the day.

Sidmouth Warriors: Joe Ashby, Alex Bennett, Connor Brown, Beck Finnemore, Christian Teague, Joe Richardson, Benedict Teague.