Jamie Chandler hails “brilliant journey” for Monkwearmouth’s Year 7s following national cup exit against Thomas Telford

Jamie Chandler was full of praise for his Year 7s as Monkwearmouth crashed out of the ESFA National Cup in a 4-1 defeat against the most successful side in the competition’s history, Thomas Telford on Thursday.

It was a fantastic achievement for the group to make the final eight in a competition which saw almost 600 schools face off, including seven rounds of football to get to this point.

Convincing victories like a 5-1 against Richard Rose Morton School from Carlisle, and a 6-1 against Dyke House Sports & Technology College were commonplace as the school scored 29 goals before this tie.

And despite the defeat today, there’s a lot to be taken from the experience.

He told SportsByte: “When you weigh it all up, 600 schools started out in the competition and to get to a last eight of a national competition takes some doing.

They were a terrific side, absolutely brilliant. You can see why they’re the most successful school in the competition’s history.

It didn’t go for us on the day; a couple of individual errors; a couple of little mistakes.

We had some really good moments in the first half but I think second half, they used class. And it was a tough one to take, we had a couple of knocks, a couple of niggles coming into it.

But we’ll learn from it so much. They’re a brilliant group, and everybody at the school is immensely proud of the achievement of getting this far.”

Focus now shifts to training to make the most of the opportunities the squad face ahead of them.

“Brilliant journey”, Chandler added. “Like I said, over the moon for the boys and the families because it’s been a great journey since September.

“Still got lots to play for (the League Cup), and we’ll get back on the training pitch and continue to work harder.”