The competition saw the top two teams from each of the 4 regional Under 12 divisions come together to decide an overall national winner. Widnes - who had finished in second place in the North West Division – were joined by North West champions Solihull and Leeds and Sheffield from the North East Division, as well as Chelmsford and Streatham from the South East and Guildford and Slough from the South West.
The teams were drawn into two groups of four that would play each other in a “round robin” format to decide who would proceed to the semi finals.
The Wild lost their first game 9-1 to Leeds on the Saturday morning – with the only Widnes goal coming from Caleb Eddleston - and then lost 8-0 to Guildford on Saturday evening. Sunday morning saw a much closer game where they narrowly lost out to Streatham 4-3 - with goals from Eddleston (2) and Harrison Ward (1) - but they still finished bottom of the 4-team group.
Eddleston actually scored two more goals on Saturday but, unfortunately, neither of them are counted as they came after the cut-off point in the game under the mercy /slaughter rule - thus demonstrating what a poorly thought-out piece of legislation that is…