The Tournament

Today has been an awesome day. The Cliff College Cougars football team was due to play against another college, but because the other team couldn't make it, we had a five-a-side tournament made up of four teams within college instead. The Cougars divided themselves into an English team and an international team, and the girls formed a team (the Lionesses, keeping in with the cat theme). Although today was to be my last match for the Cougars, it made sense for me to play with the Postgraduate Panthers, being as I've played with them more than the Cougars this year, and also because we needed another team in the tournament. Each team was to play against each other once, and then have a final couple of games to determine who finished first, second, third or fourth.

We started with a 6-0 victory over the girls, which felt especially good because, after three games and three losses against the Cougars, it was our first victory ever. We then drew 0-0 with the International Cougars, before beating the English Cougars 3-0. We knew we'd played well because we just kept fighting and creating and taking chances whenever we could, and fortunately this meant we hadn't conceded any goals either. An opportunistic couple of early goals gave us an early lead but we kept cool heads and defended well. Admittedly the Cougars had injury problems and weren't at full strength, but we were glad to finally have beaten them. This put us in the battle for first and second place, two points ahead of the International Cougars, our rivals for that match. The English Cougars had just finished third, having beaten the Lionesses. Yet again, we and the International Cougars cancelled each other out. We all battled really hard, but couldn't break each other down. This led to a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners which, after a bit of nail-bitingly close moments, we won, with our goalkeeper scoring his penalty...Wearing slippers!

The atmosphere was great, people from within the college came down to cheer everyone on, and God's love was evident in that there were no real incidents, and no cards had to be brandished. If only we'd fought today for the trophy that the Cougars will receive at graduation, instead of the last time we played them!

Thank you Lord for some great and fun footballing memories at Cliff College, and to all who have ever played for or supported the Postgraduate Panthers this year.

I'll sign off with our team anthem:

All hail the lamb enthroned on high
His praise shall be our battle cry
He reigns victorious, forever glorious
His name is Jesus, he is the Lord!

© 1987 Kingsway's Thankyou Music

Hallelujah amen!:)