EBOG 6-a-side tournament, Sunday 28th August, High Barnet

In the first tournament of 2011 Melee took to the field sporting their new decentinary kit (10-year), reverting back to the original blue strip worn on the first ever game. With a decent squad of 8 for the 6-a-side grass tourney including two Melee debutants, hopes were high of a good days play.

Drawn in a group of 3, the opposition looked professional in their 11-a-side Saturday league kits which could have put the Melee boys off. However the pre warm up antics of one team left Chris Pils disillusioned ‘I forgot these kind of people exist’. The format was to play each team twice, 10min matches. Melee watched the first game and anticipated a difficult match against the opposition when it was their turn to play. However when Melee eventually did run onto the field things started to fall nicely into place, the team passed the ball fluidly and confidence was starting to build. Melee smashed the first game 5-1, roll on.

The rest of the games in the group followed with Melee taking on one of the home EBOG teams (twats) beating them twice, one time convincingly. Melee topped the group, played 4 won 4:

Melee 5-1 Team in Red/Black
Melee 1-0 EBOG A
Melee 3-0 Team in Red/Black
Melee 3-0 EBOG A

After the lunch time break Melee were drawn into the Cup competition into another group of three with top two teams going through to the semi-final. The lunch break didn’t seem to be a problem and Melee stormed to another 5-1 thrashing, passing the ball into the net, finishing off the second EBOG team. Confidence seemed to be high at this stage but legs seemed to be starting to tire and Melee lost their first game of the day to a well organised (much younger) team. After the first round Melee realised they needed only 1 point from the remaining two games to qualify for the semi’s but that one point ended up being one point too many as Melee lost 2-1 to the EBOG team after taking a 1 goal lead and looking in control. Melee lost composure along with their legs in the final game to be beaten by the yellow kitted side and unfortunately leave the competition yet still with heads held high.

Melee 5-1 EBOG
Melee 0-2 Team in Yellow
Melee 1-2 EBOG
Melee 0-2 Team in Yellow

Overall Melee played some sublime footy at times, a real team effort but unfortunately it just wasn’t enough to take home a medal. Everyone enjoyed what was a fun day.

Player of tournament has to go to the super keeper Fabio who kept Melee in many of the games, making some wonderful saves and providing confidence to the back two. Goal difference of positive 10 proves how valuable he was. Special mention goes to Dave for his 5 goals and ridiculous two footed sliding challenge on the opposition keeper (although I think we all agreed the keeper deserved it).

Squad
Fabio, Jonny Jonny, Sho Nair, Chris Pils, Dave S, Jack Dell, Jonny Away, Kev

Goals
Justyn 1
Pils 1
Dave 5
Jack 3
Al 1
Kev 5
O.G 2

Team photo to follow