Saturday 8th May 2004 – Brentford Fountain Leisure Centre
6 boys and 6 officers went to Brentford for the final of the National Five-a-Side Competition. None of the 6 participating teams (England – 2nd Ruislip, 8th Leicester and 55th Manchester; Ireland – 3rd Kilneel; and Scotland – 4th Port Glasgow and 167th Glasgow (us)) had won the competition before. Therefore there would be a new name on the trophy.
After 4 games we were in 3rd position, needing to beat the 3rd Kilneel to finish as runners-up. Kilneel had to beat us to have a chance of lifting the trophy and they came at us with all guns blazing. We managed to hold them off for a 3-2 victory and overtake them for 2nd .
The Scottish Champions (4th Port Glasgow) finished at the bottom of the group. After winning their first game, they began to lose their shape and their heads. At one point they had 2 players sin-binned in the one game, leaving 3 players on the park.
The 55th Manchester were the eventual and deserved winners. They had a very young team (2 x 14 year-olds and 3 x 15 year-olds) and looked as if they should have been playing in the Junior Competition. The 55th won all 5 games convincingly, conceding only 6 goals in the whole competition.
Congratulations go to the 55th Manchester in their success, not forgetting the other four teams who managed to come through their countries qualifiers to reach the finals and also to our boys who played extremely well to reach the finals and finish as runners-up. Hopefully we will be back to go one step further next year.
167 Five-a-Side Squad:
Andrew Milne (GK)
Kyle Young (Capt)
Scott Corbett
Scott Gold
Stuart Ashton
Ross Young
Craig Phillips (Unable to travel)
Lee Davis (Unable to travel)
