The Marine Challenge Cup, hosted admirably by Chaffe McCall, is in its 18th Year of competition and a record-breaking 27 teams took part this year.

This is the second year that we entered the competition, with last year’s efforts producing only modest reward; we won the first round of group stages but were unlucky to be knocked out at the second group stage of the competition. It is fair to say that our undoing in 2013 was in part (in full) down to a significant lack of match fitness and the lack of any recognisable goalie.

The 2014 campaign proved to be different for all the right reasons.  First, having entered a team into the five a side tournament at Posidonia in June, the team retained just enough residual fitness, this year, for the players to last the full 10 mins of each game! This, coupled with a better ‘team mentality’ born from a few friendlies played in the lead up to the competition, meant there was a little skill to go with the running.    

By the end of the first group stage, the rain had dispersed and we had managed to cobble together a series of impressive performances that saw us defeat, Liberty Syndicate, Exchanging, Thomas Miller and the Standard Club to finish top of the group. A perfect start aided by some robust defending from Timothy Guyer and a few goals from Duncan Ealand who seemed to have found his shooting boots (for once).   

The second group stage saw us pitted against Catlin, Aegis (both youth and veteran team) and Hill Dickinson. It was a smooth run until the final group game against Hill Dickinson, where we trailed 0-1 in the final minute before Steve Brown, who was stoic throughout the tournament, found a little magic to equalise and secure a dogged draw for the team. That result secured a spicy semi-final encounter against Das Market.  With the help of a typically determined Greek display by Angelo Hadjigeorgiou and some accurate shooting, we progressed into the final on the back of a 5 – 1 win.  Having drawn with Hill Dickinson earlier in the day (just), the final was set to be a finely balance affair with us, the challengers, taking on, Hill Dickinson, the 2013 winners.   It was, naturally, a tense affair to start, with Hill Dickinson being denied by a few excellent saves before Steve Brown struck again just before half time to put us ahead.  Having settled the nerves we went on to win 3 – 0.