Football Exhibition Series EXHIBITION SERIES

On Thursday 3rd April, the Barking Abbey community came together and saw the best of TeamBA. A football exhibition with Staff v Students and Staff v Parents.

The event started with the national champions, the girls' academy, getting a great warm-up in and ready to take on the staff!

Fans started flooding in, with over 175 people at the venue and many in support of fan favourite Mr Warner! Incredible pre-made posters and banners showed their support!

There were incredible cakes and bakes made by the JLT that were worthy of the golden handshake from Paul Hollywood! The effort and dedication to bake but also to run the event from these pupils was magnificent and years beyond their age! The queues for this, alongside a very busy ice cream truck, set the tone for a great event.

And then the Champions League music started, and the teams walked out for the pre-match picture! After handshakes, the match got straight into a very competitive game.

There was nothing in it early on, with chances for both teams—Bessie running the midfield for the girls' academy, and Mr Seal and Ms Jasper controlling the midfield for the staff. Lexxie was making great overlapping runs and putting in lots of good crosses, but Mr Emberson showed his class from his professional days, plucking them out of the air! Both defences started solidly: Mr Gardner and Mr Blake were very composed at the back alongside Mr Warner and Mr Choksi, while Riley and Lucy won all their duels, were immaculate with their feet, and let nothing in behind… until a penalty, when Chambers was pulled to the ground! However…Mille produced a sensational save to not just stop it but push it out of danger. What a moment to produce—the first penalty save since U15s!

After a couple of chances for the girls, Ms Chambers produced a sensational right-footed finish into the bottom corner after a great run and pass by Mr Seal! Towards the end of the middle third, Mr Odei produced a thunderous strike that almost broke the net after great wing play from Mr Elliot and Mr Muhibul. The girls came back into it really strongly in the final third—Riley winning every aerial duel, Olivia driving forward from right-back, Megan dropping in very intelligently tactically and connecting some great passes to get Aimee
and Aryanna in behind. They showed their pace and skill getting in behind, and Chloe was making late, Frank Lampard-esque runs into the box, but in the critical moments, they failed to convert their great opportunities. A memorable moment saw Mr Emberson getting down to his left at the near post to make a great save. After a great run by Mr Brooks, who fed it to Mr David, he played a good pass into Mr Gardner, who sealed the victory with the last kick of the game to ease the nerves.

So, a game of fine margins, decided by who took their opportunities!

Next was the raffle award for the half-time penalty shootout challenge. Mr Roe kindly picked the three lucky winners.

After the staff got a brief rest, the next game was the eagerly anticipated staff vs parents match. Immediately, Mr Baker impressed in goal, playing a Manuel Neuer-esque sweeper-keeper role, and with Mr Seaton in front of him alongside Mr Palmer, they formed a very solid partnership that the staff team could not get in behind. A great left-footed finish by Mr Bedjouldi put the parents ahead, and from that moment, manager Mr McQuaid got the tactics spot on, controlling the game defensively and picking and choosing the right moments to hit the staff team on the counter. This was evident with an incredible goal from 35 yards and then a long ball played by Mr Bouflah that Mr Abedin got on the end of, making the run from inside his own half and then producing the most outrageous scooped lob to put the parents four up. They turned this into a five-star performance in the closing moments to win 5-0. It was a very good team performance from the parents, who thoroughly deserved their win.

This now puts the staff-parent exhibition series at 2-1 to the parents:

• Staff won basketball
• Parents won table tennis
• Parents won at football

What to do next this summer?

 All the photos from the event can be seen here.