Teesside battle through to futsal finals

Teesside University Futsal Club dramatically snatched a place in the British University Futsal Finals with a last second goal on Sunday at Thornaby Pavilion in the Northern regional qualifers. Jason Kilbride got the late late winner, a shot from Jon Prosser that Kilbride diverted in with his chest.

Teesside started the day with a 10am kick off against York University 2nds and easily brushed aside their challenge with a 3-0 win to cement third place in the group before coming up against Durham University in a north east derby of futsal. Another comfortable win put Teesside into the final round and one game away from qualifying for the BUCS Futsal Championship Finals.

Stirling, who reached last season’s quarter-finals, and who had impressed in the heats stood in the path of Teesside, whose record against Scottish opposition isn’t very impressive. The game started much more like a game of chess than a game of futsal with neither side wanting to give anything away. Stirling had the majority of the opening possession and Teesside sat back allowing their opponents time on the ball.

Stirling’s main threat was their strong, skilful pivot, but Jason Kilbride was more than equal to his threat and defended him out of the game. The game changed in the last couple of minutes of the first half as Teesside put the pressure on Stirling and they broke through the Teesside defence and finished past Pete Bulmer.

Early in the second half, a quick free kick resulted in Stirling playing a long ball upfield and their star man headed it in off the post over the stranded ‘keeper to make it two nil.

Now Teesside pressed forward and dominated possession but couldn’t get the breakthrough against the solid Scottish defence. Until four minutes from time when their pressure paid off for Robbie Bettson who fired in from an angle to give Teesside a lifeline.

With all the possession and using an advanced goalkeeper Teesside were looking for the equaliser and the clock ticked past one minute and Teesside were still trailing, until Prosser found space to unleash a shot on goal and the Stirling goalkeeper couldn’t get to it. Teesside had levelled with 55 seconds on the clock. They could sense a place in the finals and kept up the pressure, knowing that there would be one chance left, Teesside were patient waiting for an opening and Prosser once again found the space. He hit a shot goalwards, aware that time was almost out and Jason Kilbride was ready to pounce, deflecting the shot in with his chest to spark scenes of jubilation as they sealed the win and a place in the BUCS Futsal Championship Finals 2010.

Stirling had the place stolen in the space of a minute, but Teesside had kept believing until the last second and deservedly go to the BUCS Futsal Championship Finals for the fourth time in succession.

The BUCS Futsal Championship Finals are part of the biggest multisport event in the UK behind the commonwealth and Olympic games. Over 6,000 students will compete in 26 sports over 5 days and Sky Sports will be showing a highlights show of the event.

BoroFutsal.com will be covering the event from Sheffield with Twitter and Facebook having the exclusive results.


Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com