Category: Schools & Sport

Foundry Wanderers hold on for first cup win in eleven years

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Foundry Wanderers ended eleven years of hurt on Saturday, grinding out a one-nil win over Coldbeck United to lift the Weldale Cup in front of a noisy home crowd at the recreation ground.

The only goal came just before the hour, a scrappy finish bundled in after a corner. What followed was thirty minutes of last-ditch defending, a cleared shot off the line, and a great deal of shouting from the touchline.

A long time coming

The Wanderers had lost three finals since their last triumph and had spent much of this season mid-table. The turnaround, players said afterwards, came from a settled squad and a run of dry pitches that suited their passing game.

  • Final score: Foundry Wanderers 1, Coldbeck United 0
  • Winning goal on 58 minutes from a corner
  • Attendance the best the recreation ground has seen in years
  • The cup returns to the clubhouse trophy cabinet after 2013

The club now turns to its winter fundraising, with a new set of nets and a repaired changing-room roof top of the wish list. Celebrations, it is fair to say, ran late into the evening.

Related: Schools & Sport · Thornley Primary gardening award

Further reading: About association football

Thornley Primary wins county gardening award for wildflower yard

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Thornley Primary has been named the county’s top small-school garden after pupils transformed a bleak corner of the playground into a buzzing wildflower patch.

The project began when the school’s gardening club dug up a strip of broken tarmac behind the hall. Two summers on, it is thick with cornflowers, poppies and ox-eye daisies, and the children have logged the bees and butterflies that visit.

Learning outdoors

Teachers say the garden now doubles as an outdoor classroom for maths, science and art. The judges praised the way older pupils mentor the younger ones through the growing seasons.

  • Weekly gardening club open to every year group
  • A wormery and compost bins fed by the school kitchen
  • Seed-swap mornings run with families from the estate
  • A pond, fenced and supervised, planned for next spring

The prize comes with a modest grant, which the school intends to spend on water butts and tools. The club’s youngest members, meanwhile, are lobbying hard for a scarecrow.

Related: Schools & Sport · Weldale river clean-up

Further reading: About wildflowers