|
| |
Sports Interactive Cup (Worldnet) 2007 -
Inter Blades win the Bowl!
Click here
for official press release on the official SUFC website
The Inter Blades won the Sports Interactive
Bowl 2007 at the IFA's showpiece
event on Sunday 15th July 2007 The
story of the weekend...
We were drawn in a group of 5 teams (there are 8 groups of 4 teams and 8
groups of 5 teams), the opposition being Welling, Watford "A", Stockport "A" and Yeovil. It was a difficult group as
Watford and Stockport are both decent sides and Welling and Yeovil were unknown
quantities to us.
Our first group game was against Welling at the ungodly hour of 8:30 a.m. on Saturday
morning. We started the game well and created several chances but Welling
scored against the run of play just before half time with their first shot of
the game. We started the second half well and soon leveled through
Tom McCaig. Just as we were starting to apply heavy pressure Welling broke
away and scored again with their second shot of the game. Despite several
more chances we weren't able to grab the equaliser so our first Worldnet game
ended in a disappointing defeat.
Half an hour later we faced Airdrie in a friendly and beat them comfortably 2-0
with 2 goals from midfielder Sam Hill.
Our second group game was against a very good Watford "A" side.
We picked our game up for the first half and took a 1-0 half time lead with a
goal from Jap Kemp. Despite Watford being a good side we started the
second half looking like we could contain them, but a disastrous last ten
minutes saw us concede three goals and slip to our second group defeat.
At 12:00 noon (high noon!) we played in for us the fans, the most important
friendly of the day! We faced SUFC’s current nemesis West Ham in a
friendly. Due to the current differences between our fans/teams, my
team talk could have been a lot different, but I asked the lads to be sensible
and play football, and that's what they did. We beat West Ham 4-1 with
goals from Sam Hill, Andy Wood, James Bell-Taylor and Jap Kemp. Despite
the current situation, both teams played the game in the right spirit and all
shook hands at the end.
After a long break for lunch we reconvened for a crunch game against the
undefeated Stockport "A". Losing this game would spell disaster
for us in our quest to finish in the top 4 of the group, but Stockport were one
of the favourites for the group so it was a difficult task ahead. The boys
raised their game and finally showed their quality for a full 30 minutes beating
Stockport 2-0 with goals from James Bell-Taylor and Jap Kemp.
We had another friendly in the afternoon against Dunfermline , but we took this
one a little less seriously by playing the forwards in defence and vice-verse,
Tom McCaig scored the goal in a 1-1 draw.
Our final group game saw us facing bottom team Yeovil. All we needed was a
draw to finish 3rd or 4th and qualify for the "Plate" competition, as
our earlier results had unfortunately ended our hopes of reaching the main
"Cup" competition. We didn't start as well as we could and
conceded an early goal, but despite being the better team for the rest of the
half we went in at the break 1-0 down. We started the second half in a
much more determined fashion and were starting to get on top. Danny
Shepherd had just come on when he was unfortunately caught with a late tackle
which straight away had the referee stopping the game. Danny looked to
have sustained a serious leg injury which was soon confirmed by the St. Johns
Ambulance people that were on duty at the tournament. An Ambulance had to
be called as it was obvious that Danny had sustained a broken leg, so the
referee abandoned the game and the result stood as it was. Unfortunately
this meant we finished bottom of our group even though we were far from being
the worst team in the group.
As a result of our 5th place in the group we qualified for the Bowl competition
on day 2 of the tournament.
Danny was taken to Leeds General Infirmary, where they confirmed that he had
sustained a double leg fracture. They were initially going to operate but
ended up manipulating his leg back into position instead. He was still in
there Sunday night as apparently the Leeds G.I.'s plaster cast department
doesn't open on Sunday's!
On Sunday morning the team returned to Leeds very battle weary to face Everton
in the 1/4 final of the Bowl competition. The Inter Blades turned on the
style though and a virtuoso performance by Jap Kemp saw him score all four goals
in a 4-0 victory.
We played another friendly against Oxford before our semi-final, although once
again we reversed our forward and defensive line, unfortunately this time we
lost 3-1. Richard Eldridge scoring our only goal.
The semi-final saw us competing against West Ham once again. Despite our
4-1 friendly victory the previous day we knew this game wouldn't be as easy.
Indeed it wasn't, West Ham took a 1-0 half time lead before a fantastic fight
back saw the Inter Blades equalise through Chris Beckett before Jap Kemp grabbed
the winner with the aid of several deflections (how sweet!) to send us through
to the final.
Grimsby were to be our opponents in the final after their golden goal victory
over Crewe in the other Semi. The game kicked off at just after 3:00 p.m.
in heavy rain and the first half was an even affair on a very muddy pitch.
Chances were few and far between, but a great save from retiring Inter Blades
keeper Neil Hoyle kept the score at 0-0 at half time. In the second half
the Inter Blades stepped up the pressure but found the Grimsby keeper in
inspired form, saving several Inter Blades chances including an audacious 40
yard chip from Andy Wood that looked destined for the top corner. The
Inter Blades wasted several glorious opportunities from corners until finally
their persistence paid off 5 minutes from time. Tom Pratt delivered a
perfect in-swinging corner and Andy Wood stooped low to head home and give the
Inter Blades a 1-0 lead. Despite some late pressure from Grimsby , the
Inter Blades back line held firm to secure our second trophy in a few years.
Despite not being in the "Cup" or "Plate" competitions,
winning the "Bowl" on our first appearance at the tournament was a
great bonus for the team. Our "Day One" had ended disastrously,
but the lads were determined to bring back the "Bowl" for our
unfortunately inured player Danny Shepherd. Next season I'm looking to
take a bigger squad there to go one better and at least get to the latter stages
of the "Plate" competition. Racing Club Lens (France) won the
Cup beating Castle Rock ( Ireland ) 1-0 in the final. Leicester won the
Plate beating Darlington 2-0.
A big thanks from myself Danny Brown must go to the players that competed in the
tournament... Sean Bishop, Tom McCaig, Liam Wasden, James
Tissington, Neil Hoyle, Paul Kemp, Richard Eldridge, Sam
Hill, Ryan Beeden, Christian Beckett, Tom Pratt, Jap Kemp, James
Bell-Taylor, Andy Wood and especially Danny Shepherd.
For
information regarding the Sports Interactive Cup 2007, including directions etc.
please see the following link... Worldnet
2007 site The
rules can be found at the following link... Sports
Interactive Cup (Worldnet) 2007 Rules The
Inter Blades Press release regarding the teams' first entry into the tournament
can be found at the following link... Press
Release
|
