Better Gym MG Member Tournament
Better Gym Mere Green held its first ever football tournament at Sutton United football club, comprising of 3 teams captained by staff members, Ben, James and Terry, we had each team playing 7 a side matches with 1 sub per team, each team played eachoher twice before the top two teams played eachother in a final!
The first match saw Team Ben against Team James, as both teams felt eachother out to find the best way to get through the group stage, this game ended up finishing 0-0 but with pleanty of good football played in the middle of the park! The second game of the day saw Team Ben stay on the pitch to face Team terry, this is where things first opened up Terry's team flying out to a 2-0 lead in the first half, for things to really fire up in the second half with Bens team coming back to make it 4-2 and Terrys team scoring a consilation late on for the game to finish 4-3 this would turn into the highest scoring game of a day based on defenses. The final game of the round between James and Terry's Team was another good draw, 2-2 meaning it was all open going into the second round of fixtures.
In the reverse fixtures we saw James and Ben's teams start us off again, leading out another 0-0 draw, this would mean that no matter the result in the final game, Bens team would be through to the final, which was a good thing as in the rematch against Terry's team, it was Terry who came out 3-2 victor! this meant the final game between James and terry would be a winner takes all to get into the final, whoever won this game would book their place, this cagey came startedas the very first game did, the 2 teams feeling eachother out, and it wasn't until the final few minutes where the deadlock would finally be broken by James' team! winning the game 1-0 and booking their place in the final with their first win of the day!
This leads us onto the final between Ben's team and James's team, and as the 2 games before had predicted, the game finished 0-0, thats 3 matches between the 2 teams all with the exact same scoreline! this means it would go onto penalties, James' team missing penalty 2 and 3 means it was already down to Ben' team to finish off the game on the 4th penalty, which was missed, James' 5th penalty being saved but trickling just over the line in a final moment of shock, meaning it was down to Ben' keeper to either win it or end it in James' favour. The penalty going straight down the middle with power was not enough to get past the trailing leg of James' keeper meaning they were to win the competition!
Huge congratulations to James' team and a massive thank you to everyone who showed up to play and support on the day!