Tupoho's Leilana Martin-Te Koari tries to cut Huntley's Jamie Thompson off at the pass during their Whanganui Contributing Schools Football tournament at Wembley Park on Tuesday.
Tupoho's Leilana Martin-Te Koari tries to cut Huntley's Jamie Thompson off at the pass during their Whanganui Contributing Schools Football tournament at Wembley Park on Tuesday.
Whanganui East School has won four Whanganui Contributing Schools Football tournament titles on the bounce after narrowly defeating St Georges 1-nil at Wembley Park on Tuesday.
This season 14 schools competed in the A grade, while 21 fronted up in the B division for a total of 430 children playingin the 15-minute matches.
Whanganui East went into Tuesday's tournament hunting its fourth title after chalking up wins in the last three years.
Steve Meredith, who has coached the school in all four title performances, puts the success down to the sport culture.
"These kids play football at lunch time and after school and the sporting culture the school has built has made all the difference - these kids love it," Meredith said.
For the first time Huntley School trucked into town for the tournament and finished a solid fourth on debut after getting beaten 2-nil by Westmere School.
Event co-ordinator and Churton School deputy principal Gary Johnston said this was one of the larger events the contributing schools cluster ran every year.
"There are 22 schools that make up the Whanganui Contributing Schools cluster and all these sporting events are teacher-led initiatives," Johnston said.
"The football tournament couldn't go ahead without help from our volunteers. The majority of our referees were secondary school students from Whanganui High School and a few from Whanganui City College."
