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ADMIN UPDATE

Can now confirm that we have entered 2x teams (squads of 9 each) for the Walking Football Festival at Eastleigh on Sunday 8th March - the inaugural "Hampshire FA Legends Cup". I had to complete the forms well ahead of the day, so the squads are notional, I just put us all in in alphabetical order: if we can finalise our squads at the training session on Thursday we can re-submit our forms with the actual squads ahead of the event. I think we will probably be going for two evenly balanced squads - on the registration forms I called us H&WFC Blues and H&WFC Pinks, not 1st or 2nd teams.
The overall competition runs from 10.00 until 5.00.

Info from the Hants FA about the event:
What are the rules? Hampshire FA Licensed Walking Football Rules (January 2015).
How many players can we register per team? 10 players can be registered with the fixtures being played as 5v5.
How much is it? £2 per person if your club is a Licensed Club, which H&WFC have paid to the FA for us (18 players) out of our subs.
Where does this money go? Straight back into the development of Walking Football.
Can my family come to watch? YES! Bring all your friends and family, there is a £2 entry fee for those aged over 16 however this includes complimentary Match Day programme and full use of facilities.
What are the raffle prizes? Tickets for a Wembley Tour, Tickets to Watch Reading Ladies FC, Illustrated Children’s Books, Nike Training Equipment, Office Equipment.
How many games will there be? Teams will be divided into groups, with every team playing one another at least once, after the groups are finished are finished there will then be knock out and “best placed rounds” where every team will play one more game. The day will conclude with a Semi Final & Final which of course not every team will play. So expect 4- 6 games per team.
How long will a fixture be? We want every team to play as much as possible so until all entrances are finalized match durations won’t be confirmed. However fixtures won’t be shorter than 10 minutes nor longer than 20. Remember teams are entitled to “time out”.

The flyer they sent out also says:
• PLAY & REPRESENT YOUR LOCAL TOWN OR CLUB •
• MEET ANFIELD & SAINTS LEGEND JIMMY CASE •
• COMPETE FOR THE FIRST EVER COUNTY CUP •
• GET FACE-TO-FACE WITH THE OFFICIAL BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE TROPHY •
• FOOD & DRINK SERVED ALL DAY •
• EVENING QUIZ & PRIZE RAFFLE •
• WINNERS WILL BE INVITED TO COLLECT THEIR AWARD AT THE ANNUAL GRASSROOTS AWARD CEREMONY

This week’s penultimate report before the mighty HAWKS over 50’s walking football team enter their first tournament and hopefully bring the cup home to Westleigh Park.

In the news this week, we all await the return of The Yeti, who we hope will return with plenty of antipodean tips from his loan spell at Sydney Seniors.

It has been confirmed that The Special One was spotted in the cinema watching the screening of ’50 shades’ on questioning he stated ‘my wife made me go’, the team were quite taken aback by this, and rumour is rife that he is modelling himself on Christian Grey in case there’s an opportunity to take his place in the up and coming sequel. ’50 parades in a shell suit’


There have been 2 new appointments to the hierarchy for the over 50’s team, all administration etc will now be done (properly) by Stewart the Voice and Rob the Fit, leaving the Special One to concentrate on coaching, acting and bolstering the coffers with the subs.

Our training this week got underway in the most horrendous conditions of driving rain and howling winds, yet all 16 committed athletes turned out to train in readiness for next Sunday, our only missing Trojan was Barry the Booze. Our drills this week all focused on passing feet to feet with which we all coped quite well, the teams were selected and the 8 v 8 teams faced up and battle began.

What a match, undoubtedly the best match of the season to date with some incredible talent on display, the monstrous power that is Joe the Mighty with a superb brace, the prolific Dave the Rave a real driving force, the somewhat mystic control of Dave SBD our own obi wan Kenobi! A dazzling display from Clive the Nimble, a defensive masterclass from Pete the Fast, incredible sums up Rob the Fit, what a skill set from that rare species Paul the Anxious, a memorable stint from Tony the Wall, always engaging what a work rate John the Nipper, a commanding display from Stewart the Voice, a brilliant game from Dave the Limpet, Mo the Polite a dexterous and influential 90 minutes?, a HUGE eclectic performance from the WOK another great goal WOKA WOKA BOOM BOOM, the dependable talent of George the Safe, the glorious touch of Jeff the Influential, and finally Matt the Miss loads of effort no attainment ‘all the gear no idea’

A closely hard fought match with the blues the deserved winners 3-2

And so the match over we all reconvene at The Westleigh for a debrief (what a dreadful sight!), we are greeted by our newly appointed nutritionist Scott the Soother who builds us all up with protein in the guise of jam doughnuts, bourbons and custard creams with lashings of tea and coffee, thanks Scotty.

At the debrief it was noted that our team consists solely of ageing Caucasian codgers, it was unanimously decided that we need to invite any black, Asian and mixed race fuddy duddys to join our fine team. At this juncture I have a thousand satirical comments id like to share, but in this incredible democratic society we live built on the premise of free speech……………..i can’t, so to any ethnic over 50 males you are genuinely invited to join us every Thursday at 11am Southdowns Astro.


There is a job vacancy for our team, we are looking for a physio to attend our training and matches, must be 20 – 25 of Nordic origin have blonde hair and preferably female.


Also we feel the need for a committee or a court or shall we say a cabinet, as pioneers of walking football there are many discussions to be had on moving forward, we need a minister of diplomacy (Matt the Miss?) a minister for incontinence, a minister of development and a minister of silly walks (The Wok)

LOST; at half time it was reported that a player had lost his rag, luckily this was found after the match, let’s hope no one loses that again.
FOUND; with all the troops rallying The Wok has regained his lost lbs and we are happy to report his wonderful rotund figure has returned
Finally I leave you with a suggestion, every powerful organisation needs a slogan to live up to, as we build our stature within our sport I offer you a couple to contemplate

CARPE DIEM

VENI, VIDI, VICI

Once again I thank all my fellow players and our amazing coach for making Thursday such a good day, and I thank Adi Ding Dong the eloquent for his style and panache.

COYH

I have found a couple of photos from the Dampbusters match on their facebook page:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ ... cdc4728f67
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 740e1dc440

I think I'm probably asking Rob to get it into Row Z as fast as possible! And does my bum look big in those shorts?

happyinspain wrote:Finally I leave you with a suggestion, every powerful organisation needs a slogan to live up to, as we build our stature within our sport I offer you a couple to contemplate

CARPE DIEM

VENI, VIDI, VICI

According to Google Translate "AMBULABAM ET SATIS LUSI" might fit? "I walked and played fairly"

Brilliant report Matt, but can you clarify the final score?? I thought it was a 2-2 draw2, the Pretty Pink's scored the equalizer with the last kick of the game...didn't we??? !!

RKelly wrote:Brilliant report Matt, but can you clarify the final score?? I thought it was a 2-2 draw2, the Pretty Pink's scored the equalizer with the last kick of the game...didn't we??? !!

No, sorry Rob, but that was just a late consolation. If you recall we (blues) went 2-0 up (at this point the Wok said to me that we had the game won, I warned him that Tranmere had probably thought that at Fratton Park last Tuesday) then when you got one back we went immediately down the other end and Joe popped another one in for 3-1.

Reminds me of the Dampbusters game when at one stage I had to genuinely ask the ref what the score was....

Ah yes Stew, I remember now!! memory isn't what it used to be!!!

On another point, can we discuss on Thursday what we would like to talk to Kim about when she visits us on March 12th?? We need to make the most of the opportunity.

The "Official-ish" Report from the Hampshire Legends Cup Tournament.
For a more entertaining view of the day, you'll have to wait for Matt to recover his breath.

Hawks 50+ Walking Football: The Hampshire FA Legends Cup

Hawks Blues: P 6, W 1, D 2, L 3, F 3, A 7.

Our day started against our old adversaries Eastleigh 1. As expected they ran and pushed and shoved their way to a predictable 3-0 win. They obviously enjoy playing the way they do, and we enjoy playing the way we do. Our inclusive squad was made up of people of a range of ability/skill, whereas this was very much Eastleigh’s “first team”.
Second up was Emsworth Seniors B, against whom we had a far more enjoyable contest, but after a very even game we were edged out 1-0. Emsworth are one of the teams that we might be playing more often in friendlies soon, and their playing philosophy was like ours, very much in the spirit of the game.
Next we played Portsmouth, resplendent in pink, and once again fell to another narrow 1-0 defeat, and once again a very enjoyable experience it was. When teams are focused on playing the game properly, it is so much more fun. That said, the Pompey team were no pushovers and weren’t averse to a bit of jogging on the side.
For our fourth game, we came up against TSS Red Rovers, and earned our first point, our first clean sheet, and our first controversial incident. With the ball in play, we called for a “time out”. The Reds all stopped, and Robbie Brown hammered the ball into their net, for what we thought was a 1-0 lead. The stand-in “ref”, an Eastleigh player who was injured so not playing on the day, disallowed it saying that a time out had been called. We understood that the time out stoppage happens when the ball next goes out of play, otherwise you could simply use them to stop a striker who is in on goal. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Robbie naturally requested that the “ref” be made aware of this interpretation, to which the “ref” suggested in two words that Robbie should go away, the second of these words being “off”. We took exception to this and several of our players threatened to walk off, the “ref” threatened to walk off, and eventually two FA “Respect” officials came onto the pitch and relieved the “ref” of his duties. Bless ‘em the Reds were good sports about it all, and that moment apart the game was played in a good spirit to a 0-0 conclusion, but we could perhaps feel with some justification that just this once “we woz robbed”.
A win had to come, as we were playing far better football now as we got to understand the way the game is played. Cove Jammy Dodgers (yes, really) were the victims, and after an even first part of the match, we burst into a two-goal lead courtesy of Matt Bartolo’s double strike. We were now in nose-bleed country, not having had a lead before, and when Cove pulled one back with a couple of minutes to go, it was squeaky bum time. They pushed us hard, forcing a series of corners, but we held on for a maiden 2-1 win.
Finally we were up against Southampton DFA, a team containing a few female players. This was strange, as they are obviously quite competent and capable players, but instinctively you don’t mark or challenge them as robustly as might be the case with male players. This turned out to be a mistake as they were able to take a lead when a strong shot from one of the ladies squirmed through Derek Trapp’s gloves and into the net. It turned out that their player-manager used to be an England Ladies International and managed Pompey Ladies for a while. Undaunted we rallied, and got our just reward when another Robbie Brown thunderbolt found the back of the net, no dubious refereeing decisions spoiling the moment this time. With the last kick of the game, their ‘keeper came up to the half-way line to smash a spectacular free-kick against the outside of our post. It was so nearly a stunning winner, but a 1-1 draw was an enjoyable and just result. For us it highlighted the importance of the “inclusive” aspect of Walking Football, as for mixed matches to be able to take place means that the sort of game we experienced first thing cannot be allowed to become the norm.
We tried to give our whole squad roughly the same pitch time, but suffered a few injury blows: Joe Mair didn’t feel able to come on at all due to a pre-existing injury, and we lost goalkeeper Tony Jewell during the third game to what is probably a thigh muscle tear, then during the last match we felt compelled to take Jeff Hooper off against his will as his knee injury was making him look in such obvious discomfort we couldn’t bear to watch. The complete squad was: Matt Bartolo, Robbie Brown, Jeff Hooper, Tony Jewell, Joe Mair, Dave Richards, Stewart Russell, Paul Sealey, and Derek Trapp. And a hard shift was put in by all.

Hawks Pinks: P 6, W 1, D 1, L 4, F 1, A 9

These are the views from the Pink team.....
As we had 4 subs we split into two teams, with John Morgan and Clive Wilkin taking turns in goal.

Team 1 (starting line-up as selected by Shaun) – Clive/John, Rob Kelly, Dave Hall, Dave Veal, and Steve Talman.
First game against TSS Golden Oldies we drew 0-0. Our second match, against Hayling Old Boys we won 1-0 (Rob Kelly scoring). This was the first ever win by a Hawks 50+ Walking Football Team. In the third game we lost 1-0 to Active Nation Soton courtesy of a free kick! In all we played very well as a unit, passing the ball around well and covering for each other. We wanted to keep the line-up intact as we were playing very well as a team.

Team 2 – John/Clive, Mo Hill, Peter Dolamore, Dave Veal, and Barrie Gray.
This team didn't do quite as well and really struggled in all of their games, losing 2-0 to Cove Boca Seniors, 2-0 to Bournemouth 1, and 4-0 to Real Cove Rapidly Ageing Pensioners (yes really). They didn't really gel as a team and were on occasions too guilty of ball watching and giving away possession. However the 4-0 defeat was against the best team in our group!

Overall Rob Kelly, as captain for the Pinks felt that they had too many players, and it was hard to keep everyone happy playing the rotation system. It would have been better with just two subs. All of the teams in the Pinks’ group played fairly and with a good spirit which was refreshing!

For readers out there, a job opportunity arises, because as a squad we need another dedicated goal keeper, at the moment we only have Tony, and of course he suffered his leg injury which left us relying on people who don’t really want to be goalkeepers.
Thinking about the tournament as a whole, and some of the restrictions/rules applying:
No-one liked the two touch rule – it becomes very restrictive and frustrating.
We all liked smaller teams - having 5-a-side gives you more space and the opportunity of moving around more. You also get much more of the ball.
Goal scoring is becoming a big problem - only one for the Pinks and three for Blues - four goals in 12 games between us!!! That said we were playing an unfamiliar format of play, and when we were able to get the ball to feet in the right areas we began to look more threatening as the tournament went on.
Refereeing was very inconsistent, especially regarding running, but there was a feeling that they began to get more “observant” as the day wore on.
Our only real criticism of the organisation was to ask why we had to wait 1.5 hours between game 5 and game 6! We all stiffened up in the clubhouse, but on the up side we missed the rain showers that came along then.
Overall we enjoyed the day but need to practice two-touch football if that is going to be the rule for tournaments. From what we have seen of the other local sides in the Havant area, we feel confident that we would enjoy regular games with them, win, lose, or draw.
Full results from the inaugural Hampshire Legends Cup should be available soon at http://full-time.thefa.com/Index.do?league=123845200

Just to add that our team , Hub Wanderers , also suffered from the ultra competetive EFC 1st team , in the knock out stage , it got to the point where we just decided that if they were that desperate to win then perhaps to avoid confrontatation we'd just pass the ball around.
I had one of them go past me like Ben Swallow on speed !!!!!!!

as others have said we also thoroughly enjoyed all but one of our games and felt that the vast majority were there for the taking part

and were trying to set up a small 4-6 team tournament at the Hub in Eastleigh in the near future if you fancy a sunday afternoon out

mark c wrote:Just to add that our team , Hub Wanderers , also suffered from the ultra competetive EFC 1st team , in the knock out stage , it got to the point where we just decided that if they were that desperate to win then perhaps to avoid confrontatation we'd just pass the ball around.
I had one of them go past me like Ben Swallow on speed !!!!!!!

as others have said we also thoroughly enjoyed all but one of our games and felt that the vast majority were there for the taking part

and were trying to set up a small 4-6 team tournament at the Hub in Eastleigh in the near future if you fancy a sunday afternoon out

Cheers Mark, I'll run it by our lads on Thursday and catch up with you at the game on Saturday. I take it yours would be the only Eastleigh-based side invited to play?