Reflections on the Tournament and the background music: It was great finishing the last day at Almelo unbeaten, though I didn’t mention before that we did come perilously close to five draws instead of our one win and four draws. The team we beat in the first game managed to hit the bar with what was a decent move and shot, but that’s football as we all well know.

 

One flaw in the game they play is the ‘waist high’ rule, so when you block a shot and the ball springs up the opposition often gets a free kick somewhere around three yards from goal, with every chance another block results in yet another free kick followed swiftly by a third. Happily we didn’t actually concede a goal from that situation though one of the opposition goals of the five we conceded did come from a free kick somewhat further out. So it goes.

 

I also want to make an observation not only regarding the game but about music. As you might expect the preponderance of music over in Holland is pretty much all English language hits—indeed the first two songs in Heracles stadium at the prize-giving were the Pet Shop Boys singing ‘Go West’ and as we are accustomed to at sporting events, ‘Sweet Caroline.’ Yes, people from many nations were joining in. Loudly.

 

But not all were familiar hits. The trouble was the music piped out as we played football was what I imagine was Dutch drinking music. It was that strange, beer-guzzling incentive of a band comprising accordion and drums accompanied by rolling, jolly (very Dutch) lyrics.

 

Finally, in the hotel’s three lifts there was always the sort of pop music we know, and there was a time when—quite alone between floors—I happily danced along to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen.’ As always, these lifts have a security camera, so somewhere in the Preston Palace vaults there is now a video tape of me dancing. So, should you ever go to this tournament, please do not ask to see it. You would be horrified at how bad I am at dancing.

 

But I bet now you can’t get the ‘Dancing Queen’ tune out of your mind.

 

Day Two: By rights this should be named the Clive Ellison day. The lad netted all three of our goals in which—drum roll please—we made it to a final and while we drew, at least we were unbeaten on the day.

 

So, picture this table after our morning games:

 

1) one of the two Billericay teams W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

2) the other Billericay team W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

3) Senior Spireites W1 D2 L0 Pts 4

4) FC Trampled On (actually a team called Putten) W0 D0 L3 Pts 0

 

Oh, the joy of these World Cup little leagues… We only finished third because the top two beat poor old Putten by more than one goal. Still, it put us in a semi-final, of which more later.

 

Actually we had a scary start to the day as one of our team—who shall remain nameless—was sampling Almelo night clubs between the hours of 1 and 3 in the wee small hours and we feared he wouldn’t make it to the bus taking us to the stadium. He did arrive on time, saving us having to play with five (I briefly wondered if we were in an Agatha Christie novel, going from 8 originally down to potentially 5)

 

In the opener, Clive netted our winning goal against Putten after some magic from Pete, who mostly played defence with Billy but went forward from time to time to help us out. A clean sheet made us think we were on our way, having watched the two Billericay teams fight out a goalless draw. Apparently they had the idea we weren’t too good after they watched us win, but they admitted afterwards we were a much better team than they thought.

 

In the second game we held one of them to 0-0, though Clive hit the post, and we deserved more as we played well. Same in the third game when we went close a couple of times but defended well for another goalless draw.

 

Shame Putten were so weak defensively in conceding more to our other group teams, but we were in a play-off round for a decent place.

 

Lunch probably didn’t help us in that we took time to get our rhythm in the afternoon against a team going by the name of Sonderborg, who took the lead against us, meaning our little run of clean sheets was over. But before too long, Andie got the ball into the middle and Clive coolly finished to give us a 1-1 draw.

 

There were no penalties for a decider as it was judged on fouls committed, which were mostly running offences. As we were more controlled than our opponents we thus earned the place in the final.

 

Our opponents were Cleethorpes Walkers, an off shoot of the Grimsby Ancient Mariners, who had so many players that the men teams and the women teams were able to travel by coach having taken the ferry over from Newcastle.

 

It was a tight game as we expected, and they were quite physical—and like the team that beat us 3-0 yesterday they employed the tactic of putting a player directly in front of me in goal. He was a tubby chap too. However slim Clive put us ahead from another Andie feed and with a few minutes left we had visions of another win. Alas a counter attack caught us out and they levelled.

 

Our fourth draw then, but a commendable performance with just six players to our name, though early on in a group game we did borrow a Grimsby player.

 

The outcome was we finished ninth out of 32 teams, and generally we showed we could play. Two wins and four draws, with only one of the two defeats seeing us outplayed and the other we should have at least drawn, so all in all a good tournament.

 

One final bit of news was Clive finding himself very popular with the Dutch girls. If you come over anytime, do as he did and wear an orange shirt; the local girls thought he was an Ajax fan.

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Day One: After a long, long journey from Chesterfield to Almelo on the Tuesday - a trip enlivened by both Graham and Andie narrowly avoiding being squashed in the train automatic doors - we had an evening to ourselves, with everyone off sampling different pleasures of the oddly named Preston Palace hotel (I have been to Preston and: trust me, there isn’t much Royal about it). Eventually we all settled for pool (both water and potting) and ten pin bowling. By the time tiredness took over Billy was leading in the ten-pin battle and your humble reporter somehow second.

 

Most of us went to bed early-ish but one of our number - who will not be named - found himself, a glass of Bailey’s in hand, making friends at 2 in the morning with one of the hotel security guards.

 

To the football on Wednesday. Weather forecast said likely overcast, coolish; Mother Nature said sunshine and heat. Still, it was nice waiting in the morning sun waiting for the opening ceremony to begin and our train survivors, Andie and Graham, to do us proud with the Spireites flag.

 

First game was against a team from Germany, Sung 2 (possibly their back up  Eurovision Song Contest entry). They got an early goal, we bossed about 75 per cent of the rest of the game but couldn’t make our possession count, though Pete was desperately unlucky when in front of goal the ball stuck between his feet and the Germans scrambled it away.

 

Second game was against Putten, a Dutch team, and we won 2-1, thanks to a Graham opener slotted from the right and after they squeezed in an undeserved equaliser, our so far top scorer repeated his skill from the same position with a last minute winner. Great stuff!

 

We did however for this game borrow a player from Cleethorpes Walkers who distinguished himself by coming on as sub for Andie, and managed to get himself yellow-carded almost at once and thus two minutes off, so we played with five men mostly without his help. At least we managed the win.

 

To the third game and, by now tired, played FC Bintang Timur and they, armed with plenty of subs, somewhat overpowered us 3-0. At the end, our thoughts were we did well to hold them to three, with Graham very unlucky when with the score at 0-1 his shot rebounded off the post. For long periods we defended well against this highly mobile team, though I can’t forget Clive’s comment: “Two or three of them must be German—they have hard faces.”

 

Those results left us with three points and third position in our group. We shall see tomorrow where this puts us in the Thursday structure of better or lesser teams.

 

Finally, after all the football we attended an award ceremony of sorts for some teams who had played often at the Almelo tournament, coupled with a fundraiser for disabled children to allow them to play football in specially adapted wheelchairs. It makes you think when the local organisers tell of this very worthwhile appeal not in their native Dutch, but entirely in excellent English.

 

It was like being home, but with better speakers.