It was Welsh dominance once again at the MAN v FAT Football National Tournament at the weekend, as Swansea lifted the title for the third year in a row.
There’s clearly something in the water on that side of the Severn Bridge, with Wales now having taken the last four MAN v FAT National Tournament titles (Newport the previous winners) and Swansea and Newport again went head to head in the final two at the weekend.
But this year’s tournament was also a celebration of how MAN v FAT has evolved in recent years.
Not only were there a host of MAN v FAT clubs making their tournament debut at the weekend, we also had our first international representation, with a MAN v FAT Soccer team from Florida making the long trip over to participate.
The Americans were welcomed to the Lilleshall National Sports Centre on Friday with a game against a MAN v FAT HQ side to get the journey out of their legs, and they went on to make many new friends across the course of the afternoon.
It was a story that unfurled across all of the 16 groups, with clubs coming up against other MAN v FAT set-ups from different parts of the country, allowing them to share their experiences and successes on the programme so far.
Despite rainy weather conditions, the group stages were played in a positive mood as the five rounds of games saw the tables take shape.
Across the 16 groups, there were only three teams with a perfect qualifying record as Swansea, Margate and Bromley won all five of their matches. Meanwhile, there were a further nine unbeaten records ahead of the knock-out stages, with Salford unlucky not to emerge from Group C despite avoiding defeat.
As the day wore on, the weather picked up and so did the level of competitiveness as the chance for glory moved closer.
The group games saw the title holders Swansea knock out their club mates to make it to the last sixteen and the drama continued to unfold elsewhere with a number of penalty shoot-outs being required to separate the teams.
Despite sides now having played a lot of football as the tournament progressed, the quality remained high – both in terms of the finishing to score goals and the standard of goalkeeping to keep them out.
Swansea had both sides of the game sorted and were proving to be a hard nut to crack, but they were run close in the semi-finals by an impressive Margate team who were eventually edged out by a narrow 2-1 scoreline.
On the other side of the draw, Newport had needed penalties to edge out Harlow at the Quarter Finals stage but found their rhythm again in the semis to see off Peterborough.
And so another Welsh final awaited and in a highly competitive fixture, Swansea edged out their neighbours to lift the silverware once again.
A memorable afternoon’s work by all concerned and the question for many of the teams there at the weekend was “How do we overcome the Welsh next year?”
