By Ryan Walters, Sportsbeat 

MATT Liddiard insisted his Hartpury College side got exactly what they deserved after claiming the men’s football Championship title at BUCS Big Wednesday.

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

In booking their showpiece spot Hartpury College kept clean sheets against 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 lead them to 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 admitted it would have been harsh for his side not to have gone on a picked up the win.

“To win this is an absolute privilege and a dream come true,” he said. “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 and went in but it has gone in and from then on we were solid as a unit and hard to beat. So were they, fair play to them, you can see why they got through their stages.

“We have been 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 brilliant 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 go stronger and stronger.

“We finished second in the league but it took us a while to get into the swing of things, but once we got to the business end of the season we were absolutely solid and prepared for every single game that came our way.”

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