Venue: RNC College (Hereford)
Date:13 September 2014.
London Metro Futsal Club took two teams to a tournament for the first time for the open cup at the start of the 2014 / 15 season. A positive increase in player numbers at training and continued invaluable support from both Metro Sports Club for the Blind and the Primary Club have meant the club entering two teams in the league and the Open Cup was a chance for several members of the ‘B’ team to get a taste of competitive action for the first time.
7 teams attended the first tournament with London ‘A’, RNC Bulls, North West Scorpions and Loughborough from the league Division 1 and London ‘B’, Sporting Albion and Hampshire Bats from Division 2. Each team would play a round robin against the other 6 teams and the top four teams at that stage would play semi-finals and finals.
London ‘A’ started strongly with victories against RNC, Sporting Albion and Hampshire without conceding a goal. North West Scorpions were out to impress against the top teams having been promoted from Division 2 in the league and won a tight game against the ‘A’ team 2-1 but victories against Loughborough and the ‘B’ team meant they qualified comfortably in second in the group behind the Scorpions.
The London ‘B’ team played well in patches in losses to Scorpions and Loughborough but were unable to score a goal however their third game against Hampshire saw them notch up their first competitive victory with a 3-0 win against Hampshire. That was a good as it got for the team though as an unfortunate injury in the fourth game which left the team with 5 players to finish the day made life difficult and they were unable to register another goal in defeats to RNC and Sporting and were knocked out of the tournament alongside Hampshire.
London ‘A’ played RNC in the semi-final and were behind at half time but a better second half performance meant the game was tied at full time and penalties were needed to separate the teams. London were able to triumph 3-2 and move on to play Scorpions in the final, who had been unbeaten through the round-robin stage.
London stepped their game up in the final and had too much for Scorpions, triumphing 4-1 to claim their third tournament in a row to hold all three cups simultaneous which is a great achievement. The ‘B’ team competed well for their first tournament and can look forward to a year in Division 2 with competitive action and hopefully a few more victories.
Teams:
London A: Matt Cole, Craig Groves; Adam Lione, Charles Ronayne, Mark Russell
London B: Devon Adams, Everton Amos, Chris Berry, Yusuf Can Zeyrek, Jack Gunning, Malcolm Woolven
Article by Charles Ronayne
