The last two days of February proved joyous for three individual schools’ teams from Nottinghamshire as both Trinity School (Aspley) and Rushcliffe School reached the semi-finals of the Midlands sections of the English Schools’ F.A. Minute Maid Cups and Dukeries Community College beat the holders of the E.S.F.A. Under 15 Cup for girls to go through to the last eight of this season’s competition.

As with the Nottinghamshire County squad, the performance of an individual player should not hide an excellent all round performance from Dukeries as they beat Thorpe St. Andrew School (Diss, Norfolk) 5-2 in the last sixteen of the Under 15 Girls’ Cup. Megan Howard has now scored 11 goals in Dukeries’ last three matches in the competition which have been a 4-0 win against Eckington School ( Sheffield ), a closer 5-4 victory against Tupton Hall followed by this success against Thorpe St. Andrew.

Howard followed all four goals at Eckington with another three at Chesterfield against Tupton and then added another four in Wednesday’s success. The other goalscorer was Toni Charlton (see full report in Other Cup Competitions / National Individual Schools ).

Having both won their first round matches in the boys’ section of the E.S.F.A. Under 13 Minute Maid Cup, the Nottinghamshire champions, Trinity and the runners-up Ashfield were drawn together again in the 2nd Midlands Round. Trinity had won the Nottinghamshire final 5-2 but the return match was a much tighter one with Ashfield playing well and Trinity below their usual form, perhaps because they have had so many easy matches this season.

The first half was very even with the only goal coming from Malachi Lavelle Moore who netted with a fine 25 yard right foot shot although Jordan Slack (Ashfield) hit the bar before Trinity’s goal. Ashfield equalised soon after half-time when a well delivered free-kick from Sam Burnham and some pressure on the defence by Danny Wilson caused havoc and a defender put through his own goal. Trinity recovered well from this set-back and looked to have won the game when Louis Greenway Tambini scored twice in quick succession but two minutes from time, Danny Wilson scored another for Ashfield to set up a tension-filled end of the game. Trinity held out to set up a Midlands semi-final against Priory LSST at Lincoln .

On the same day, Rushcliffe travelled to Lincolnshire to take on St. Goerge’s College of Technology in the 2nd Round of the girls’ section of the Minute Maid Cup and they made easier progress with a 5-1 win. Grace Abbott netted a hat-trick for the second successive round before going off injured which will be a worry for Rushcliffe with the semi-final scheduled before the end of term. Hannah McLenaghan scored the other two goals with Fiona Worst (unusually not on the score-sheet) excelling in a more withdrawn position and Katie Howie in defence. Rushcllife will now be at home to Leysland High School from Leicestershire before the end of term.