The AFC Wimbledon Kids Cup was a fantastic success this year with a record 37 teams from Wandsworth, Kingston, Merton, and Sutton taking part.
Thousands of children from around the country participate in the Utilita Football Kids Cup, offering a chance to reach Wembley. EFL clubs host their own tournaments every year with the winners having the opportunity to represent them in regional finals. Eight teams won through to the ‘finals day’ for the AFC Wimbledon tournament, which will be staged at our training ground in New Malden in January.
Last week’s AFC Wimbledon Kids Cup was hosted by our Foundation at state-of the-art facilities at Southfields Academy.
Our Foundation coach Andrew May said: “Our annual Kids Cup is organised by the EFL Trust and we’ve organised it this year with two sessions, one in the morning with 17 teams and another in the afternoon with 20 teams. Last year we had 32 schools taking part, so we’ve beaten that record. We’ve had really positive feedback. I was talking to people from a school involved in one of our Merton events and they said this is the one they look forward to because of the standard of the tournament. The winners of this get to represent Wimbledon and if the school that wins the Southern region event will go to Wembley, so it’s a great incentive for all those teams involved."
The winners of AFC Wimbledon’s tournament last year were Cheam Park Primary Academy. Despite just missing out on making the finals day this time around, Adam Wicks, PE teacher at the school, said: “It’s been an excellent day, even though we didn’t quite get the result we wanted in the quarter-final. The standard of football has been excellent today, so all the teams that have qualified have a good chance in the finals. We were lucky enough to win the competition last year and represent Wimbledon in the next stage. The club looked after us well on the day and our boys loved it as they got to wear the Wimbledon kit. It was excellent and really good to be a part of it all.”
The eight schools to qualify for finals day are as follows:
- Cheam Common Junior Academy (pictured above)
- Ravenstone Primary
- Newton Prep
- Thomas’s Battersea
- Sacred Heart Battersea
- Earlsfield Primary
- Sellincourt Primary
- Honeywell
Congratulations to all eight teams and we look forward to seeing you at the training ground in January!