Manchester Games 2009

Lancaster team with three Liverpool imports (Hasif, standing far left, Awa and myself)

Our first match against Cheetam Hill B

I'm writing this with an aching body. Fortunately you just need your fingers to type words. Today I went to Manchester with Awa to play for Lancaster futsal team in the Manchester Games 2009 as they don't have enough players to play with them. We brought along with us one youngster from Liverpool, Hasif. We are supposed to play against four other teams in a group matches. Only the group's winner will advance to the quarter final together with the best runners-up.

We started our first match against Cheetam Hill B and won easily 3-1 with a hattrick by Hasif. In our second match, we managed to beat Bristol 3-0 with two goals from Syahir and another from Hasif. I played in both matches, but only for a few minutes in the second half. It's all tactical, of course. After these two matches, we started to believe, that something unthinkable could happens, which is becoming group winners (!)

However, our third match against Sheffield B started disastrously when we were immediately behind by a goal. Luckily, our star player Hasif managed to equalise for us. We thought the match is going to end with a draw when in the last seconds Syahir managed to score a winning goal. I didn't play in this match as Sheffield B were playing quite rough and I just don't want to risk any injury (honest!). I did a quick look at the other results in our group and found out that we only need a draw against our last opponent to advance to the quarter final.

Our last opponent is Staffordshire Stoke and they have so far won two and drew one. So they need a win to get through. The first half looks promising as neither teams conceded any goal. I started in the second half  as one of our defenders still has not recovered from the grueling match against Sheffield B and the first half against this Stoke team. Things are really looking our way when suddenly something horrible happens. Our goalkeeper who was excellent throughout the tournament received the ball and he immediately throw the ball straight into an opponent player. I could only watch with horror as he drove the ball right into the corner left bottom of our goal. We tried our best to get the equaliser but it never came.

Our last hope is to become the best runners-up but we found out that there are another team who were also second in their group, who have same points with us, same goal difference but superior goals scored. So we departed from the venue exactly at 1pm. 

It was a good fun, but after few hours the body started to feel the pain. And to think that the last time I played football was nearly six months ago, I have nobody else to blame but me, but it was really worth it, as it feels something like a closure for my involvement in the football tournaments in the UK, which started about 15 years ago.