EAST Lancashire schools took part in their own European Championships as Accrington Academy was turned into Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Lens, Saint Etienne and Lyon all rolled into one.

The 24 teams each chose a country to represent with matches taking place on one day across eight pitches.

Group A saw Switzerland (St Charles) and France (St Michael and St Johns) as the top two with Romania (Balderstone) and Albania (Benjamin Hargreaves) third and fourth respectively.

Group B would be won by Wales (St Mary's Oswaldtwistle) with Slovakia (Sacred Heart) in second, England (Oakhill) in third and Russia (Peel Park) fourth.

Ukraine (St Leonards Langho) would top Group C followed by Germany (Salesbury), Poland (Hyndburn Park) and Northern Ireland.

Group D would be won by Croatia (St Mary's Langho) on alphabetical order narrowly edging out Turkey (St Wulstans). Spain (Moorend) finished third while Czech Republic (St Pauls) finished fourth.

Italy (Simonstone) won Group E, Sweden (Mellor) finished second while Ireland (Huncoat) and Belgium (St Bartholomew’s) were third and fourth respectively.

The final group was won by Hungary (St Hubert’s), Portugal (Peel Park) finished second, with Austria (St Peter & St Pauls) finishing third and Iceland (Read St Johns) finishing fourth.

The group stages were completed in the morning session with the knockout games taking place after lunch.

Germany beat France 5-1 and would play Croatia who beat Austria 6-0. Wales beat Romania 5-0 to book a match against Hungary in the quarter-final after they beat Sweden 3-1.

Ukraine beat England 4-2 and would play Turkey who beat Italy 1-0. Switzerland beat Spain 4-0 to set up a quarter-final fixture against Portugal who beat Slovakia 7-0.

The quarter-finals saw lots of exciting games with every team trying their best to reach the semi-final stages.

Croatia would book a last four place after beating Germany 1-0 and would play Hungary who beat Wales 3-2 in another really close and tense game. In the only one sided game of the quarter-finals Ukraine beat Turkey 4-0 while Portugal required penalties to beat Switzerland after a 0-0 draw.

Croatia would once again be involved in a close game as Hungary defended really well but just couldn’t keep the clean sheet as the Croatians won 1-0 to be the first team to qualify for the final.

Ukraine would once again show their dominance as they beat Portugal 3-0 although the Portuguese had most of the ball and created chances.

Hungary would go onto beat Portugal in another really close game 3-2 to finish third.

The final would saw Croatia dominate from start to finish going as they took a 2-0 lead, and although Ukraine pulled a goal back it was Croatia who took the title, with their player Mackenzie Hodgkinson voted as player of the tournament.