Into the Quarter Finals of the Dallas Cup

Team Photo of the Knowsley Youth Team

We've made the quarter finals!! After an anxious day of waiting on Wednesday too see if other results went our way, we found out we got through on a wildcard, which is where the best runner up out of 6 groups goes through. Our tournament kicked off on Sunday, which seen us brush past a decent side from Florida 4-1. Our second game didn't quite go our way as we were defeated by Dallas Texans 1-0 by a calamity of a goal which seen the ball hit the stantion behind the goal and come back in to play for their forward to tap in.  After this result we knew we had to go into our third game and win by a few goals, and that is what we did. We outplayed a Mexican team in every position and came out 4-0 winners.

After another 10 hours of waiting to see if other results went our way we finally found out that we will be playing a Costa Rican national team on Friday morning. All the lads are buzzing and cant wait to go and beat another South American team! 

Between these games we have visited the Dallas Cowboys stadium which is the biggest indoor dome stadium in the world holding 105,000 thousand people.

We also went on  a trip to the American Airlines stadium to watch the Dallas Mavericks basketball team play! 

Another thing we have been lucky enough to do is driving around Dallas on Segways. Joe Shepherd fell off his twice, which was a good laugh for all the lads.

Will keep you posted on how we get on in the quarter final. 

Ellis Messham Captain of Knowsley Youth: Blog from the famous DallasCup 2014

Squad photo of the Knowsley Youth 2014 Dallas Cup team captained by

 All Saints 6th Form student Ellis Messham

Ellis Messham is a current All Saints 6th Form student. He was given the captaincy for Knowsley Youth in the famous international youth football tournament in Dallas. He is on of three All Saints students in the team. The other two players are Joseph Shepherd and Adam Campbell. Past pupils also include Charlie Maher, John Edgerton, and John Prescott.

After a full 24 hours of travelling on Monday 7th April,we finally arrived in Austin,Texas via New York. One of our first experiences of the tour was to take part in some voluntary community work. We visited an educational establishment that was set up for children who have parents who work long hours. These boys and girls are often underprivileged.  The lads in the Knowsley squad helped with their homework, although some of them were being taught by the kids. On the same night we played our first friendly game against Georgetown soccer club winning 3-0. 

The Morning after we had another game against St Edwards University who are a really good side, a team that Knowsley haven't beat for 3 years. (The year they beat St Edwards they went on to win the Dallas cup).  We beat them 2-0, one of which came from another ex-All Saints pupil John Prescott. The game was an early kick off which then meant we had the rest of the day to ourselves. We spent a few hours sitting around the pool at our accommodation, before going to a driving range like I have never seen before. You can play against each other with targets that can register a score. On Thursday morning we visited the local high school which was a great experience as we got to see more about the educational culture in the USA, and also to see the amazing facilities they have, especially for sports. We are now all packed and ready to drive to Dallas, with the tournament starting on Sunday.