It's Funny Who You Meet...................

It's funny who you meet at times:

An early start this morning as I had to make sure Anthony was at The Emirates for a 7.30 departure for the Arsenal International Soccer Festival that is celebrating it's 20th anniversary and is staged at The Royal Holloway Campus of the University of London ~ that's the very impressive Gothic building on the left as the A30 rises up the hill from Egham right by Wentworth Golf Club for the uninitiated.

The tournament is for teams from U8 up to U19s and started yesterday and will continue all week. Although it is an international tournament, with participating teams from as far afield as the USA, Canada, Cyprus, Russia, Bahrain, South Africa,Indonesia, Saudi Arabia......................you name it, there are teams from all over; but in the U9s section in which Anthony was involved the farthest afield sides were from Somerset, Bristol Rovers, and Lincolnshire.

Having seen Anthony off on the team coach, I was soon accosted (I was sitting outside the ticket windows) as I waited for TB1 aka Jaildodgergull ~ a good travelling companion this of all weekends and his son Dan. Accosted? well a wandering group of Celtic fans on the lookout for tickets for their game with Arsenal this afternoon obviously thought I was a ticket tout and that their luck was in.

We stopped off at the foot of Egham Hill just before we went onto the campus for a coffee and a pee and it was whilst in the loo that I met a guy who turned out to be the father of the legendary mega cyclist Vin Cox whjo was just about to call in for a rendezvous having cycled off from Greenwich in February and was about to complete a 29,000km circumnavigation of the world in record time (smashing the previous world record by over a month!) and he had only landed back in Plymouth via the Roscoff Ferry yesterday morning.....................you can read all about him on www.greatbikeride.com/ as we actually turned into Royal Holloway, there was the intrepid mad man wheeling down the hill on the other side of the road!

So to the car park and then TB1 is then accosted himself...................this time by someone he went to Curledge Street Primary in Paignton with over 45 years ago ~ how do these people recognise one another? Incredible!

Anthony's Arsenal ASS team were drawn in a twelve team competition split into 2 lots of 6 sides for a series of games which only lasted ten minutes each, and then even that was split into two halves............ridiculous in my opinion and completely against all the principles of patient build up and possession play they are brought up on; but there we are, that was the format. Incredibly they managed to complete their first four games without managing to score and only conceding one goal thus a record so far of lost one, drawn three and it really looked like it was going to be an early exit for a squad made up of just three under 9's and six under 8s.................this was Anthony's final appearance as an U9 and he was regarded as the "senior player" of the group with a brief to be assertive and "look after" the little 'uns!

As they always seem to, and in common with several other similar pro' club set ups; they opt to play without a dedicated goalkeeper and include an extra outfield player in their squad and rotate the keeping duties between a few of the bigger lads and then for only one half at a time.

So to their last group game and due to play a big, strong looking Bristol Rovers CoE side, and lo and behold they take the lead with quite the most stunning half volley from distance I have seen for some time and Jack, the scorer; had never scored a goal in his life before despite being an ever present for A Class U9s all season and being at Arsenal since January! Rovers got a last gasp equaliser; so off to the scrutineers' tent to find out that after all a record of p5, w0, d4,l1 was good enough to achieve the final (and 8th) qualification place for the KO stage and a quarter final against the table toppers and the only team they had lost to so far..................result? a 2-0 victory including a hotly disputed "Frank Lampard" effort that this (female) referee deemed over the line ~ I didn't agree as it happened and I don't think any spectator did; but then I wasn't the ref and neither were they!

Anthony's turn to play in goal came for a semi final exit again to a late goal and to a shot that would have taken his head off had he been sighted enough to get in the way of a superb half volley....................I'm half glad he wasn't, but he is getting a bit pissed off with going out in three summer tournaments to single goals in semi finals and losing two finals (one on sudden death pens) since the regular season ended.

Anyway, Anthony "signs out" as an under 9 and a very eventful first full season of competitive football it has been to him. Life as an under 10 starts tomorrow!