Belvedere Under 14's Visit to  Sunderland AFC Easter 2007

View photos >>>

For a number of years now, Belvedere's Under 14 team have been invited guests of Sunderland AFC at the Easter weekend.  This year it was the turn of the current Under14's and they spent another very successful weekend in Sunderland over the Easter bank-holiday weekend. 

After a very early start on Friday morning, with the flight at 6.35am, Belvo arrived to the Sunderland Academy of Light to have breakfast followed by a very good training session with Sunderland academy coach Elliot.

All the lads really enjoyed the session on the excellent pitches at the academy. The session was all based on passing and movement, crossing and shooting.. The 16 man squad all came through the session injury free and in they went to the Academy restraunt for some lunch.

The highlight of the weekend came on Friday afternoon. Just after lunch, and as we were about to head off to our digs, Sunderland manager Roy Keane arrived into the academy canteen, out of the blue, and chatted to the lads for about 20 minutes, answering their questions, telling them what it takes to become a professional footballer.

Tired and weary we headed off to Clanny House, the Sunderland University accommodation where most of the lads relaxed for the afternoon, before a game of bowling that evening which coach Tony “the striker” Lynch won. ( Who said he was too old to win ? )

We arrived back at Clanny House and the lads had an early night, after a very long day. Saturday morning, after breakfast the minibuses took us to the Academy of Light for our 11am kick-off against Sunderland Boys, a schools selection. 

Belvo put in a great team performance and came out 2-0 winners. Matt Doherty and Ross O’Connor scoring the goals. The one cloud over the game was the injury to Sean Skelly, who suffered a bad ankle injury, following a mistimed tackle after less than a minute.

We then headed to the Stadium of Light arriving at 2 o’clock to see Sunderland take on Wolves in The Championship, ....Roy Keane v Mick McCarthy part two !!. Sunderland won an excellent game 2-1, in front of 42,000 fans, a really enjoyable game for us to be at. The lads went to the cinema to relax on Saturday night, before another early night.

On Sunday morning we went for a tour of the Stadium of Light. Costing on 21 million pounds to build, it is one of the best stadiums in England. We even got to see the Sky Sports studio inside the stadium, and sit on the bench. Then we went back to the AOL for our second game, against a mix of Sunderland’s Under 14s and 15s. 

This was to be a much tougher game, finishing 0-0. The Sunderland side were excellent, Belvo were tired but still put it a decent performance. Mark Roche was Belvo’s most consistent player over the two games, with Adam O’Brien and Anto Corcoran close second‘s. None of those three are in the Ireland squad and Marko and AOB are our two smallest players, proving size is not everything. 

A quick tour followed around the excellent academy complex, the swimming pool, gym, games room, media room and a question and answer session with academy director Ged McNamee, whom we would like to thank for an excellent weekend.

We then headed back to Newcastle Airport for a late flight home. We would like to thank all the staff at Sunderland, especially John and Dick, our two bus drivers, for making our weekend very successful.

The Belvo party for the trip was - Craig Sexton, Leigh Swords, Danny Joyce, Matt Doherty, Anto Corcoran, Keith Buckley, Adam O’Brien, Sean Skelly, Paul Graydon, Dean O’Rourke, Mark Roche, Ross O’Connor, Eric Wade, Luke Dillon, Neill Byrne, Dean Simpson and Sean Prizeman. Manager Derek O'Brien, Assistants Anto Corcoran, Tony Lynch and Jamie Moore 

Report - Jamie Moore

Homepage