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New Forest, Villa Road top Insports Manchester Primary Schools football, netball
January 20, 2026
New Forest Primary and Villa Road Primary schools were crowned Insports Manchester Primary Schools football and netball champions, respectively, last Thursday at Manchester High.
New Forest defeated McIntosh Memorial 1-0 on a Rojah Thomas goal for the football title, while Villa Road showed their class in a 20-7 win over Bethabara for the netball trophy.
In the football decider, both teams played well and had good chances to score, however, it was Thomas' first-half strike that separated the teams on the day.
"It came down to execution," New Forest coach Omar Robinson said. "We have worked on our finishing throughout our training sessions."
He noted also that his team did a good job defensively to nullify McIntosh's main threat in Neymar Newsome, who had 14 goals over the campaign.
"They all knew about him. So we did our work defensively and made sure he didn't have any sort of room or space to hurt us," he added.
Despite losing his second successive final, McIntosh Memorial coach Jerome Marshall said they played a commendable match.
"The boys played well and we thought we would have had it in the bag but that's just football."
Meanwhile, in the netball championship match, Villa Road dominated Bethhabara over the four quarters to emerge champions.
The Marlon Hibbert-coached team raced to a 8-2 lead after the first stanza and were up 14-3 at halftime.
Villa Road continued to restrict their opponents to two goals a quarter and at the end of the third they led 17-5, before seeing out a 20-7 win over their opponents for their first ever netball title.
Coach of the year Hibbert said even though they played below their best it was still a creditable display.
"It was a fair game. Even though the girls didn't play to their full potential, it was a good game. An ugly win is better than a pretty loss. The girls gave a good account of themselves and we were victorious. So thumbs up to the girls. It's a good look for them and the school," he commented.
Bethabara's co-coaches Nicole Hastings and Kayon Holness were distraught after the loss.
"We worked hard to come to this final but we did not execute well. If we did, we would have been champions. But win or lose we are still champions," Holness stated.
Meanwhile, coach of New Forest Primary, Omar Robinson, and coach of Villa Road Primary, Marlon Hibbert, were both named Coach of the Year for football and netball, respectively, and received $10,000 each.
In the third-place playoff games, Mandeville Primary defeated Nazareth Primary in both competitions.
They won 21-6 in netball and 1-0 in football.
Each of the winning schools also took home $50,000. Second-place teams pocketed $30,000, third place 20,000 and fourth place $10,000.
Villa Road's goal attack Amelia Robinson was the netball MVP and New Forest's Rojah Thomas the football MVP.
