Charity Tournament: Penalty Woes

After a disappointing league season, it was good to travel for a tournament which carried a lot less pressure than league days. We took two teams to Dorchester on Saturday 18 May for a charity day, organised by Dorchester Walking Football Club. Half of our players had never played in a walking football tournament before!

There were eight teams representing four clubs at Avenue Stadium in Dorchester. They were Dorchester themselves, Sherborne, Weymouth and of course Dexter Sports. We were split into two groups of four, with the top two in each group progressing to the semi-finals.

Group Stage

Dexters Stormtroopers

In Group B, Dexters Stormtroopers started well in the first half against Locomotive Dorchester. They came out confident for the second half, believing they could win the match, only to cocede two sloppy goals and create little in the way of attacking threat!

Match two was a tight encounter with Weymouth Clarets, in which we couldn’t see out a 1-0 win, with another goal being conceded in the second half of a match, which ended one-a-piece. We then had a break to gather our thoughts and take a rest ahead of our final group match.

With just one point from the first two fixtures, we needed a win to stand any chance of booking a semi-final berth. After two 1-0 wins, Sherborne were in the box seat for group winners. They were to secure a third 1-0 win on the bounce, as we conceded yet another goal in the second half!

That was the Stormtroopers out of the tournament. We didn’t get hammered, but we also only scored one goal in three matches and conceded all of our goals in the second halves! Definitely some lessons to be learned there!

Group B	W-D-L	GD	Points
Sherborne	3-0-0	+3	9
Weymouth Clarets	1-1-1	+2	4
Locomotive Dorchester	1-0-2	-2	3
Dexters Stormtroopers	0-1-2	-3	1

Dexters Thunderers

Fortunately, our representatives in Group A, Dexters Thunderers, were rather more successful. Their opening group match was an encouraging goalless draw with Torpedo Dorchester. Both teams would eventually qualify from the group.

The Thunderers tournament really came to life in the next match, with a 3-2 over Weymouth Sky Blues, after being 3-1 up. The team were certainly feeling confident with four points from two matches.

The final group match against Dynamo Dorchester (1-1) secured top spot in the group and a semi-final spot against Weymouth Clarets who were runners-up in Group B.

Group A	W-D-L	GD	Points
Dexters Thunderers	1-2-0	+1	5
Torpedo Dorchester	1-2-0	+1	5
Weymouth Sky Blues	0-2-1	-1	2
Dynamo Dorchester	0-2-1	-1	2

Semi-final

Dexters Thunderers vs Weymouth Clarets

The two top scoring teams from the Group Stage met in the semi-finals. The Thunderers had scored four, while Weymouth Clarets scored six, including smashing five past Locomotive Dorchester in their final group match.

Dexters scored three minutes into the match, with a flowing counter attack after a great save by Billy in goal had thwarted Weymouth (02:50s in the video).

Andy played a first time pass out of defence to Luke, who played another first time pass up front to Gary, who’d managed to get in behind the Clarets defence in the blink of an eye, blasting his shot top bins to the keepers right. It was Gary’s fourth goal of the tournament.

Unfortunately, Dexters were unable to hold that lead. Weymouth found a way through for the equaliser half way through the second half, with a cool finish after a loss of concentration in defence gave the ball away (14:50 in the video).

The match went to penalties, and what a shoot-out it was! 31 penalties were taken before a winner could be declared! You can see those from 20:00 in the video.

Money Raised

In all, the charity day raised a erditable £1,075 for Prostate Cancer UK. Added to a similar event just before Christmas, for a total amount of £1,851. A great effort by all those involved.

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