THE hottest day of the year so far greeted one of the Cardenden area's was popular community events.

The Willie Maley Trophy is organised by the John Thomson Memorial Committee and the Active Schools organisation and sees Cardenden, Denend, St Ninian's and Kinglassie Primary Schools battle it out for trophy presented by the famous former Celtic manager of the late 1940s.

Referee Kevin McGuinness was the man who took charge of the games and did a good job as the children from the four schools showed some excellent skills watched by an excellent crowd at the new Fife Council facility at Wallsgreen Park.

The final was a closely fought encounter which featured Denend and St Ninian's and it proved to be an end to end encounter and it was the team from Bowhill, St Ninian's, who lifted the Maley Trophy for the third year in a row by a 3-1 scoreline.

The trophy was presented to the St Ninian's captain by the new chair of Cowdenbeath Area Committee, Councillor Linda Erskine, who was joined in carrying out the presentations by newly elected Councillor Rosemary Liewald. Other trophies were presented by Moira Fitzpatrick, Margaret King and Lorraine Mullen, who also took photographs for the Times.

Chairman of the John Thomson Committee, Alex Burns said: "There was some fabulous football on a fabulous day weatherwise and I would like to thank Bowhill Centre staff Margaret and Lorraine for their assistance, the teachers of the schools involved and committee members Willie Duncan (the popular Raith Rovers fanatic), Jamie Thomson and John Parish for their help, along with Moira of Active Schools."

The full list of trophy winners was, Willie Maley Trophy, St Ninian's; runners-up Denend; best player Cardenden Declan Reilly; best player Denend Keiran O'Donnell; best player Kinglassie Ross Black; best player St Ninian's Neil Bulloch.