Tain vs Peterhead

Continuing my one-man mission to encourage more school sports coverage in the local papers, today I photographed the under-13s and under-15s football matches between Tain Royal Academy and Peterhead Academy.

Not a great day for Tain as they lost both matches, but hopefully some of the photos will make their way into the papers. When you consider the skill and dedication that these young people have, I think it's a shame that their efforts and successes go largely unreported.

I was only looking for three strong photos from each match so I'd have enough to share around the Ross-shire Journal, the North Star and Peterhead's local paper the Buchan Observer. I actually got 20+ good action shots from each match but for the papers I specifically want peak action foot-on-ball photos with one player from each side. I think the under-13s photos are by far the better ones.

The ones from the under-15s game suffer from the same problem as the ones from most of the adult matches I cover: It was all brute force, very little player-vs-player action. The younger kids kept control of the ball until they could safely pass it, whereas the older ones would just take possession and boot it up the pitch. With that kind of play there's really only one thing you can do and that's set up camp on the goal line and grab shots as players run towards you.

The last shot is the Tain player scoring his team's only goal of the game.