KING’s College’s girls football teams continued their run of success by winning both the U-16 and U-18 six-a-side South-West Independent School’s FA competitions on Sunday.

In a highly-competitive tournament, which included teams teams from Malvern College and Cheltenham Ladies, both teams had to work hard to retain the titles they lifted in 2013.

The U-15s event demonstrated just how far football in the independent sector has come in recent years with some outstanding play from experienced and novice players alike.

The play-off semi-finals saw King’s and Malvern progress to the final game of the day.

End-to-end football saw the game settled by the more clinical finishing of King’s who netted three times to gain victory.

The U-18 tournament saw Malvern and King’s top their groups after the early stages and both eventually reached the final.

In a keenly-contested match King’s took the lead just before the break when Lucie Waddon drove a clinical shot into the bottom corner from 15 yards.

After the restart King’s lost Gemma Chilcott to an injury and late on Malvern took one of their few second half chances to draw the game 1-1 at the final whistle.

In the penalty shoot-out that ensued debutant Beth Beale showed real composure to step forward and calmly slot the ball into the bottom right corner. Malvern responded and then Lucie Waddon fired home King’s second. Malvern converted their third to leave the scores tied at 2-2.

Injured skipper Katy Hanscomb then hobbled up to take King’s third to secure a hard-fought win and ensure that her team retained their title.

Chris Heayns, head of football at King’s, said: “Of course I am delighted that our girls won through particularly as they did so in the right spirit.

“It is really pleasing to see how much the standard has improved since we started hosting the event in 2010.”