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SPORT NEWS - Greenwood Bay College’s u16 teams once again travelled to Port Elizabeth for this year’s instalment of our High School sports tour. To further build onto last year’s tour, a decision was made to include the u16 girls’ soccer team, due to its popularity among our students.
This proved to be a fantastic decision, as they fitted right in with our netball and boys’ soccer teams.
Click here for a photo gallery.
After setting off on the 3 hour bus ride to the Windy City early on Thursday, 16th May, we soon arrived at St Dominics Priory School for the first set of soccer fixtures. Our boys showed volumes of determination by narrowly going down 3-2, with the girls putting on a spectacle, beating Priory’s 2nd team 3-1. We were then off to Pearson College for netball, where our girls unfortunately suffered a 24-9 defeat. Later that evening we all enjoyed dinner, ice skating and bumper cars at the Bay West Mall. It’s worth mentioning that although all the players that attended tour are naturally gifted on land, our staff looked on with amusement as majority of them struggled to get the hang of this new environment, falling repeatedly or clinging onto the side railing for dear life. Needless to say, the hotel was deathly quiet after a long day of travel, sport and activities.
Friday morning was earmarked for some downtime on PE’s famous King’s Beach, a few hundred meters from our hotel. A few fun-filled hours later, and after stocking up on food and drinks for an evening braai, we were en route to renew our rivalry with Victoria Park High School. After all was said and done, we left with convincing wins for our netball and girls’ soccer teams, and a hard fought draw for the boys’ soccer under our belts. Friday evening was the staff’s ‘mystery activity & braai’ which, to all of the player’s delight, was a night of 5-a-side soccer and Fifa 19 competitions at the newly built Fairview Action Arena. A few hours later, with many stories to tell on the bus ride back to the hotel, we departed to get some much needed rest before our Saturday morning fixtures.
We all made the most of the hotel provided breakfast early on Saturday morning, whilst watching the sunrise over the ocean on a chilly but wind-free day. Soon we were back on the bus and heading to Alexander Road High School for our final matches of the tour. Despite the enormous pool of students our opponents had to choose from, GBC delivered another fantastic set of results. Our netball and girls’ soccer teams once again came out on top, and despite our boys’ soccer losing 3-2, I personally found it to be one of the most exciting school boy matches I’d ever watched. Our Principle, Mr Kuhn, summed it up nicely when he said that we should have won the game 5-3.
Our last night was out at The Boardwalk where, after a well-earned dinner, the players (and some of the staff) made the most out of the go cart track, challenging each other over and over again with unrealistic bets that were never going to be honoured. A few of the diehard arcade fans, however, spent most of their time (and the remainder of their money) trying to rack up enough tickets to win cheap and noisy toys from the Magic company. Unsurprisingly, none of these toys survived the 5 minute bus ride back to the hotel.
All in all, the 2019 edition of our u16 sports tour to Port Elizabeth was a huge success. As important as it was for our school to come back with positive soccer and netball results, what we really wanted to provide our travelling students with, were those incredible memories of being away with teammates in a ‘foreign land’, that we as adults still fondly recall to this day.
Thank you to all the staff who made this tour possible, as well as our players who left it all on the field/court each game. Bring on 2020!
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