A SCHOOLGIRL five-a-side football team from Poole has been crowned double-winning national champions following a dramatic sudden death penalty shoot-out.

The Year 7 pupils, from Broadstone Middle School, took the English Schools Football Association (ESFA) title after beating Thomas Telford School 5-4 on penalties in a tense final earlier this month.

Thomas Telford needed to score to keep their hopes alive, but Broadstone’s goalkeeper Kayla Rendell pulled off a fine save to ensure the trophy came back to Poole.

Captain Molly Pike and Ella Wright converted both their penalties after both teams forced the shootout into its knockout stages This fiercely-contested match took place at Derby’s Soccerdome, where eight top teams who came from more than 400 initial entries battled it out for supremacy.

The Broadstone team already holds the ESFA Under 11 National Championship title from 2011.

Hannah Ansell, Aimee-Rose Collier, Eleanor Ewles, Bryony Gibbs and Abigail O’Hare made up the rest of the triumphant squad.

Broadstone assistant team manager Ben Ansell said: “This exceptional group of girls have worked very hard during the season in the physical, technical and psychological and social aspects of their football.

“We were already proud of them for their national success in 2011. To win again is quite unprecedented and unlikely to be repeated.

“Their team performance in the national finals was quite outstanding, they are a credit to the school and we are all exceptionally proud of what they have achieved.”