Footballers go from strength to strength

Loughborough Students FC have had a great week, on Sunday two current students and one alumnus helped Worcester City to a historic win in the first round of the FA Cup against Coventry.

Then on Wednesday night in the BIG match against Nottingham the BUCS 1s ran out 4-0 winners. The women’s footballers also built on their campaign with two wins and two draws on Wednesday.

Current students George Williams and Tristan Dunkley helped Conference North side Worcester City to a 2-1 win over League One Coventry alongside former student Daniel Nti.

Nti in action against Man Utd as a Loughborough player

The Epinal caught up with Nti after the game to get his thoughts on how the Loughborough football set-up has prepared him for this level of football.

“The Loughborough football programme was a great starting point for me because of the high quality of coaching and facilities, not to mention the caliber of players that were involved in the programme. This definitely helped me to push on as I learnt a whole lot through playing for two seasons at Loughborough and from the opportunities that being involved with the programme gave me e.g winning BUCS and playing for England Unis.”

I think it shows the real strength of the Loughborough football programme, but there are also still an abundance of great players who are and were involved in the programme that are achieving a lot. It does make it more special to achieve something like this with familiar faces around and I hope more special moments will come.”

When asked about appearing on the BBC Sport website and TV Nti couldn’t quite believe the publicity the game got.

“It’s a pretty crazy feeling knowing that thousands of people are watching a game that you played in on the BBC. Hopefully we continue to work hard and achieve higher heights as a team so we can continue having moments like this.”

George Williams celebrates after the final whistle v Coventry

Current Loughborough football captain Sam Minihan had this to say about the achievement.

“It was also brilliant to see Daniel Nti, George Williams and Tristan Dunkley progress to the second round of the FA cup with Worcester. It speaks volumes of the club that we are producing players who can compete and surpass professional opposition. The three lads deserve everything they’ve achieved and inspire us younger players to reach where they are.”

Concentrating on matters a little more close to home Minihan was delighted with the win over Nottingham.

“The game finished 4-0 with Alun Webb getting a hat trick and James Capon getting the other. Again everyone stepped up and performed for us. I will however credit the way we are defending recently with four consecutive clean sheets in the last four BUCS games.”

“We knew they would start brightly as every team does against us. We managed to remain resilient in defence and play our way into the game. We then began to dominate possession. The quality we have going forward means we’ll always score goals. After the first went in we grew with confidence and the end result was inevitable.”

Sam Minihan leads out Loughborough against Man Utd earlier this term

Worcester’s reward for beating Coventry is to face another away trip to League One opposition, this time in the form of Scunthorpe United on December 7.

Meanwhile the BUCS 1s sit top of the Premier North division having won four out of their opening five games. They next entertain Northumbria University on Wednesday 19 November.

Women’s football’s successful week saw the first and second teams walk away with draws against Nottingham Trent and Oxford. The real success came for the third team, who destroyed Derby Buxton 11-0. An impressive fourth team also defeated midlands-rivals Leicester 3-1.

This week also marks the start of the Play with Pride campaign, which aims to tackle homophobia in sport.

All the teams will be looking to keep their run of form going, but it will be difficult to top this week’s achievements.