Coventry Mind’s football team won first place yet again!! This time in London’s Willesden Sport Centre- a very nice and tidy place with a lot of green around it.

On a cold and cloudy Friday morning we made the great effort to wake up, get ourselves together and go to the Football Tournament organised by Brent Mind. When we arrived we were lucky to find a place to put our bus on the busy car park. We were welcomed by Alex Liley an ex-Coventry Mind worker and one of the organisers of the event. It was nice to see a familiar face in the crowd. He showed us the Sport Centre, but unfortunately we weren’t allowed to eat our sandwiches in the inside café and had to do that outside on the benches, in the cold. That was a little nuisance, which we fixed later with a cup of hot tea. Then we were rushed to change our outfits and the adrenalin level started to climb. We had to go for a little warm up before the game which helped a bit with the cold.

We played four games in sequence and every one of them got harder and harder. No one was cold any more. After a good pass from Luke, Martin scored a goal, so we had the confidence to go for a win. We pressed the rivals as much as we could, but as you may guess they pushed back. Thanks to the great efforts of the defence of Stephen and David and the goalkeeper Chris, the opponents weren’t able to score any goals. It did help a lot that Hugh and Kelly kept the rival’s defence busy all the time. The reason we won the competition was due to a strong team effort. The trophy - a bronze football shoe was given to us. Everybody got a certificate for participation as well. Of course the winners deserve a picture, so they took a photograph of us. We were given golden/chocolate medals and a brand new football. As they say “The winner takes it all…”

Here comes the turn to share their thoughts some of the team players:

DT: “On the way there I thought we were going to lose and I didn’t feel nervous. Everybody played great and we won at the end”.

SM:”On the way there I thought we’ll win, but when we got there and I saw the other teams I thought we are going to lose at least the first game. Then I said to myself “Go for it. We may win””.

KB:” I thought we are going to win because I am a girl and they would give us an advantage, but they did quite the opposite. They played as hard they could, but we won anyway”.

CL: “I was going on a trip to London .That was it. I thought we may win, but I wasn’t sure. After we won I’m proud of everyone’s performance.”

HJ:” I felt anxious before the game. After we won I felt just great. I couldn’t stop myself smiling and laughing”.

LM:” I thought we are going to lose, because we missed key players, but after I think we played better even without them”.

MM:”I was looking forward to play. The opposition looked really fit. So I though we are going to have tough time. I felt ecstatic after the game, because it was a team effort. I think we had a lot of chances to score as well. We were the better team overall. We deserved to win, because we worked hard and there was good communication between ourselves”.

After all this the only thing that comes to my mind is “We have to do it again!”

Picture by Nadia AtturaFootball Team