The global pandemic certainly impacted sports across the country from the month of March 2020 and beyond. St Gregory's Catholic Primary School competed in many sports events since September 2019 and we wanted to celebrate our achievements at our annual sports awards event, held within social distancing guidelines. All our children who competed in many inter-schools competitions were superb and represented St.Gregory's with outstanding spirit of competitiveness and sportsmanship. It was extremely hard to select winners in each category.
Here are the deserved winners for 2020.
A lot of planning went into organising our teams and events this school year, as we hoped for another fantastic year of sports at St Gregory's Catholic Primary School. We purchased new kits and equipment. Instructors and coaches were eager to supervise the activities and a full diary of matches and events were booked in advance.
The only thing we had not prepared for was a global pandemic!
This may have halted our plans from the end of March but there was still plenty for us to be proud of this year.
Our children thoroughly enjoyed netball this year. We held a netball club and recruited Emily to help Mrs Richardson with the training sessions. Emily is an England international player and she really inspired our children. Our team entered the MADCOS tournament for Maghull schools. Far from being overawed, our children excelled and finished runners up in their group. We didn't win the Championship but everyone came home with a medal after qualifying for the Finals.
Our swimming team entered two gala competitions and did exceptionally well in both. The MADCOS competition proved to be our best performance. The girls finished 1st overall and boys finished 2nd , this gave the team a 2nd place finish in the competition by the finest of margins. This was a fantastic achievement filled with gold and silver medals for individual and relay races for St Gregory's!
St Gregory's Year 3 and Year 4 mixed team entered the Sefton Gymnastics Championship and performed really well.
Miss Richardson had prepared the team and practiced the routines to perfection, helped by Sam and Jess from Beth Tweddle Academy. St.Gregory's delivered a near flawless display and other coaches were very impressed with a number of our children, expecting us to win by some distance. We were awarded 3rd place overall which was a great achievement in their first competition.
St. Gregory's cross country team did very well indeed this year. Although the overall places were not revealed, we were looking likely for a high finish in this season's competition. The races the children competed in showed the young athletes giving 100% and having fun along the way. Some of the team were successfully selected for the Sefton district team after consistently impressive race times.
We had high hopes for St.Gregory's footballers this season and they didn't disappoint at all.
Our girl's team who previously won the Sefton Championships for the last two years were naturally the team to beat this year. Every team raised their game when playing St.Gregory's, but we still manged to finish 3rd place overall and displayed some amazing football along the way.
The girl's were sadly knocked out of the MADCOS tournament at the semi final stage on sudden death penalties.
The girls had made a solid start in the league and were hoping to challenge for the title after finishing runners up in the previous year for both the league and the cup. Sadly the league was cut short due to covid-19, with no final places announced.
The girls always played with a smile on their face and represented the school with professionalism, as well as wining trophies along the way.
St Gregory's year 5 and year 6 boys team had a great season despite the disruption and managed to play most of their league games before things changed in March. They came runners up in the MADCOS league competition and qualified for the champions league finals - which were sadly cancelled.
In the MADCOS Active Soccer tournament the boys went one better, beating all teams and being crowned champions! The football the boys displayed was amazing, it will live long in the school sports memories! What a fantastic team they have been. Hard work for the boys really paid off!
As a year group they had a fantastic football journey through years 4.5 and 6. They won two LFC tournaments, two Gill Eustace Shield tournaments and also won the Liverpool F.C. Merseyside championships before this season's title.
Prior to March, four of our year 4 and year 5 teams competed in Sefton tournaments, as well as some very entertaining friendly matches against each other. In the Sefton tournaments both teams finished group runners up with just one defeat, a single goal to the eventual winners. No medals this time but some exceptional football was played and this offers great encouragement going forward. The results of the matches were very close but great fun for the children, parents watching and the staff involved. They are looking forward to continuing their school football journey when it is safe to do so.
Congratulations to St.Gregory's Year 6 Swimming Team who finished 2nd in the Maghull and Districts Swimming Gala. Overall the school came 2nd, with the boys finishing 2nd and the girls finishing 1st overall. All of the children won a medal, thanks to some incredible individual and team performances. With nine schools participating it was always going to be an exciting, tense and a competitive gala. The gala consisted of 10 heats, with the top 6 racers going through to the final. St.Gregory's were the only school who managed to reach all 10 finals.
Here are the results from the gala:
Millie - 5th in the Year 6 Backstroke
Jacob - 5th in the Year 6 Backstroke
Imogen - 3rd in the Year 6 Breaststroke
Luca - 3rd in the Year 6 Breaststroke
Maddison - 2nd in the Year 6 Front Crawl
Dylan - 4th in the Year 6 Front Crawl
Girls' Medley - 1st place
Boys' Medley - 1st place
Girls' Front Crawl Relay - 2nd place
Boys' Front Crawl Relay - 3rd place