Martin stars on his England debut
England Under-19s beat their Turkish counterparts 1-0 in Doncaster thanks to a Chris Martin strike. The friendly victory at Doncaster's Keepmoat Stadium served as a practice match ahead of Brian Eastick's side's European Championship qualifying campaign.
England Under-19s beat their Turkish counterparts 1-0 in Doncaster last night thanks to a Chris Martin strike.
The friendly victory at Doncaster's Keepmoat Stadium served as a practice match ahead of Brian Eastick's side's European Championship qualifying campaign.
In front of an impressive 11,555 crowd in South Yorkshire, the young Englishmen secured the victory with Martin's second-half effort.
Meanwhile, Norwich had four Academy players involved in the Ireland U-17s match against their Scottish conterparts.
Academy Scholars Gareth Matthews and Kurtis Byrne both started for Ireland who also had Norwich Under-16 schoolboy Danny Kelly on the bench. For Scotland Kris Renton had to settle for a place on the bench.
Ireland started the game the more lively of the two sides and went ahead after seven minutes through Manchester City's Ian Daly.
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The Irish continued to dominate the game throughout the first half with Daly's strike partner Michael Collins (Liverpool) and Kurtis Byrne on the right causing the Scottish defence plenty of problems.
Matthews, recently recovered from injury, had a solid game at left-back as Ireland increased their lead, again through Daly, just before half-time.
The second-half saw Scotland try to get themselves back into the game and substitute Carlo Monti (Celtic) scored with a header on 6o minutes.
Gareth Matthews had to be substituted shortly after following a knock, while Scotland brought on Kris Renton with ten minutes to go but it was not enough to salvage a point against the resilient Irish.
The two sides now have further games against Germany and Greece on Friday and Monday to decide who qualifies for the finals (Germany won 4-1 in today's other match).
After today's result the Irish are clearly best placed to challenge hosts Germany for a spot at the finals which will be staged in Belgium in May.
