MATT LIDDIARD insisted his Hartpury College side got exactly what they deserved after claiming the men’s football championship title at BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Big Wednesday, writes Ryan Walters.

After finishing second in the Premier South division, Hartpury College were keen to ensure lightning didn’t strike twice after setting up a championship final clash with the University of Stirling.

In booking their showpiece spot Hartpury College kept clean sheets in their quarter final and semi final victories over Northumbria and Loughborough respectively.

And their defence was just as miserly in the big game against Stirling with a Scott Wilson penalty on the stroke of half-time enough to give them a 1-0 victory.

The Stirling goalkeeper got a hand to Wilson’s spot-kick but could only push the effort in off the post, and Liddiard, a box-to-box midfielder for Cirencester Town when not on college duty, admitted it would have been harsh for his side not to have gone on to pick up the win.

“To win this is an absolute privilege and a dream come true,” said captain Liddiard. “I have been here with Hartpury College for six years and I won it twice with the college boys, but to win it with the seniors is brilliant and even better.

“It was definitely a penalty and Scott has taken it really well, composed himself, and fair play to him.

“I was a bit nervous when the keeper got a touch to it and it hit the post but it has gone in and from then on we were solid as a unit and hard to beat. So were they, you can see why they got through their stages.

“We have hard hard luck stories in the previous seasons with the seniors. We got knocked out in the quarter finals, but it is absolutely brilliant to win it with such a great bunch of lads.

“We basically had to rebuild. We had a few players go and then obviously had new players come in. We started off a bit shaky but throughout the season we have just got stronger and stronger.

“We finished second in the league (to the University of South Wales side which features his Cirencester Town team-mate Nat Jarvis) but it took us a while to get into the swing of things.

Once we got to the business end of the season we were absolutely solid and prepared for every single game that came our way.”

In the winning Hartpury College were three other past or present Cirencester Town players: Jamie Edge, Chris Knowles and Brad Hooper.

British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the governing body for Higher Education sport in the UK, representing 170 institutions and facilitating 52 sport programmes.

BUCS has been shortlisted for Governing Body of the Year at the BT Sports Industry Awards 2015 and is supported by Deloitte www.bucs.org.uk.