Report: Village Wirral triumph in 2008 competition

Village Wirral of which several of their players play for FC Village or have played at one time for the team were successful in their attempt to win the 2008 Village Hotel Football Tournament. There were 7 Village hotels represented: - Hyde, Hull, Maidstone, Nottingham, Swansea, Warrington and Wirral. With only 7 teams the tournament was set up so that everyone played each other thus giving them all at least games each.
Wirral’s first game was against Hull and as always both sides took this game to get in to their stride. Wirral won thanks to an early goal from Steve Anderson although Hull had their chances and they would ultimately meet again in the semis. Up next for Wirral were last years finalists Warrington and the home team ran out comfortable winners by 3-0 thanks to goals from Tom Evans(2) and Martin Metcalf. Looking good Wirral suddenly found themselves in a match in their next game and after conceding an early freak goal they got back on level terms through Tom only to concede straight way. Once again they levelled things with Rob Lee’s first goal but for the third time in the game they let Swansea gain the advantage with a third goal and this time there was no way back and they had lost the game. However this would be the only time in the whole competition that they would let a goal in. The following two games went the same way as they came up against two goalkeepers in good form and they were held to goal less draws by both the reigning champions Nottingham and then Maidstone. In their final league game Wirral were playing the unbeaten Hyde who were sitting pretty at the top of the table with two games left. In a close and hard fought encounter Wirral just scraped it thanks to a great effort from Tom and some resolute defending and goalkeeping. This result meant that Wirral had ended up in second place when had they lost this last game then they could have gone out. So joining them in the semis were Hyde (1st), Hull (3rd) and Swansea (4th) which meant Wirral played Hull in the first semi.
As in their first game it was a close affair with only one goal separating the two teams and as in that first match the goal scoring hero for Wirral was Steve Anderson. In the second semi Hyde beat Swansea by the same score 1-0 but were thankful to their keeper who had kept out a Swansea penalty to prevent it going to penalties. So the final was on the day as expected; Wirral v Hyde.
Once again the defences and the goalkeepers dominated as chances were few and after the ten minutes the final was still goalless. So the ref (who did really well all day) went straight to penalties with Hyde first up. They converted and Tom duly levelled tings at 1-1. Jamie Hill then made a really good save before Jason Church put Wirral ahead 2-1. When Hyde blasted their third over the bar it looked good for Wirral but Rob saw his effort smash against the bar so it was still 2-1. Hyde made it all square before Martin notched to keep Wirral ahead. So it came down to the last two penalties and when Hyde scored for 3-3 it was left to the senior player in the Wirral side in Mick Povall to calmly step up and fire in the winner to start the celebrations. Wirral had done it, after falling at the semis for the last two events they had succeeded in bringing the trophy home. With several of the teams stopping over most of the people who had taken part went off for a well earned drink.

League Results
Village Wirral 1-0 Village Hull (Anderson)

Village Wirral 3-0 Village Warrington (Evans (2) Metcalf)

Village Wirral 2-3 Village Swansea (Evans Lee)

Village Wirral 0-0 Village Nottingham

Village Wirral 0-0 Village Maidstone

Village Wirral 1-0 Village Hyde (Evans)

Semi Final
Village Wirral 1-0 Village Hull (Anderson)

Final
Village Wirral 0-0 Village Hyde

Village Wirral win 4-3 on penalties (Evans Church Metcalf Povall)

Team Line-up

Village Wirral : Hill: Povall, Metcalf, Church, Lee, Anderson, Evans
Sub : Eagan, Williams

More photos from this game click here