THEY have done it – Great Sankey High School’s Year 7 boys football team are national cup finalists!

Having already made history by reaching the semi-finals of the ESFA Boys under 12s Playstation 9-a-side Schools Cup – no Warrington school has ever made it as far – they have now gone one step further.

They beat Northampton School for Boys 3-2 in Monday’s semi-final, with Jack Waters scoring twice to go with a further goal from Elliot Hardman.

Great Sankey will now contest the final on the big stage of The Hawthorns – the home ground of Championship side West Bromwich Albion – on Monday, May 22.

Andy McCann, head of KS4 at the school, manages the team and he says the team have the chance to put help keep football on the map in a rugby-dominated town.

“We put a lot of emphasis in the team meeting on the fact nobody remembers losing semi-finalists and that the boys had to give it their all to experience the day out at The Hawthorns,” he said.

“This is an experience we will want the boys to enjoy and are looking to make it as special as possible by taking them down the night before, staying in a hotel and setting it up as professionally as possible to leave no stone unturned.

“Reaching the final is obviously a massive achievement but now we have switched our focus to winning it.

“These boys are ready for the challenge and as a management team and school, we aim to give them the best possible chance to create a lasting legacy for Warrington from a football perspective.

“We want to show the country that this is not only a rugby town, but now has school football teams to be recognised nationally.”

Elliot Hardman’s deflected effort put Great Sankey ahead at the break before two quickfire goals from Joe Waters put them well and truly in command.

However, Northampton refused to go quietly and score twice in quick succession themselves to set nerves jangling.

Still, the Warrington side managed to calm themselves impressively and see out victory.

“In fairness we controlled the game from start to ‘nearly’ the finish,” McCann said.

“We looked stronger, more organised and much more of a threat going forward.

“We worked our way into 1-0 half time lead through and both keepers then kept the score at 1-0 by making some vital saves.

“We started the second half really well and found ourselves 3-0 up after 40 minutes.

“We had a good solid 10 minutes of possession and lots more chances after that until we had a mad five-minute spell were we conceded two quick goals and the nerves were starting to show.

“Luckily the boys, led by captain Frankey-Joe Brown, managed to calmed the game down and could probably have scored a couple more in the last minutes to make it more certain.”

McCann also revealed how he and assistant manager James Edgar – a PE teacher at the school – gave their players some added motivation in the build-up to the semi-final.

“I tried to tap into the boys’ reasons why they would want to win the game – so I used letters from home.

“I got parents to write in and express their thoughts on their sons progress and achievements in football. We then read them out in a team meeting before we played.

“The boys really responded well to this and went out wanting to put on a performance for not only themselves but their families.”

Results so far

Round 1: Kings Leadership Academy (Warrington), won 10-0

Round 2: Reddish Vale High School (Stockport), won 13-1

Round 3: The Kings School Chester, won 3-2

Round 4: Knutsford Academy, won 3-0

Round 5: Poynton High School, won 5-1

Round 6: Kirkburton Middle School (Huddersfield), won 5-3

Round 7: St Josephs RC Academy (South Tyneside), won 4-0

Quarter-finals: Upton-by-Chester (Chester), won 2-1

Semi-finals: Northampton School for Boys, won 3-2