Friday staged the entertaining finale to this year’s pre-season tours with Watford FC prevailing as the LFE Invitational Tournament winners.
The youth team tournament was concluded in an eventful final between the Hornets and Walsall FC.
The match started off with Watford controlling large periods of the first-half and in doing so they managed to open the scoring through Austin Eaton.
The second half told a different story as it was the Saddlers who retained possession of the ball and used it to their advantage.
Reward arrived in spectacular fashion as golden-boot winner Dan Griffiths slid his sixth goal of the tournament under the keeper and into the oppositions net.
(Dan Griffiths Celebrating His Goal)
As the intensity and temperature were both turned up, the Saddlers were provided with an opportunity to get their noses in front after a foul on goalscorer Griffiths inside the box saw them awarded a penalty.
However Walsall were denied by Watford keeper Jack Bonham, much to the delight of his teammates.
The dying minutes of normal time did not produce a winning goal and so it was into extra-time.
The chance of finding a winner seemed all too far away for Watford and protecting their position was made all the more difficult when Bonham was deemed to have handled the ball outside the box and was shown a red card.
The final period of the match asked the players to dig deep and find their second winds and it proved to be ten-men Watford who had reason to celebrate in the dying stages, as Bernard Mensah burst through to strike the ball across the white line securing an emotional victory.
(Watford Celebrate As Champions)
Before the final the battle for third spot was contested between Scunthorpe United and Wycombe Wanderers. The Iron’s of Scunthorpe claimed victory by one goal to nil courtesy of a Scott Matthews strike.
(Scunthorpe United 1-0 Wycombe Wanderers)
