Atlantic Rovers Road Trip 2010! Part 1

I promised a trip report on the Atlantic Rovers first outing at the Hopeman Soccer Tournament in Scotland, so here it is!

Roniildo, BOR , Jodingo!! and Johnaldo were the intrepid foursome who set out from Newark airport to represent the Mad Celts at the tournament combining with my brother and friends from Glasgow to form the Atlantic Rovers. This was an awesome road trip with lots of soccer, lots of beer and lots of fun! The journey up to Hopeman was a long one as we flew to London, then Glasgow then drove to Hopeman arriving about 24 hours after we had set off from Connecticut! After no rest at all we headed straight to the local bar where there was a fantastic reception from our hosts the Elgin Marbles. A Scottish piper was there to welcome us into the bar, we each received a gift of some nice Elgin Marbles polo shirts and we had lots of beer flowing to the wee small hours of the morning. BOR even attempted to blow the pipes! Perfect preparation for athletes!
The next morning, after a huge Scottish breakfast, we were ready for the games to begin. The main tournament was an outdoor 7 a side competition that had 7 teams from around Scotland and the Atlantic Rovers. The format of the tournament was two groups of 4 teams playing each other once over 15 minutes. The top two teams from each section then played in the "Champions league" section while the bottom teams played for the consolation trophy. Our main aim was to survive against some of the teams that were clearly made up of players under the age of 40. To our surprise we came through the first three games undefeated and qualified for the Champions league. Some great goalkeeping by BOR had kept us in the games at times but we had also scored some great goals to beat a good Edinburgh side and draw with two of the local teams. The next section was a lot tougher and we were well beaten by the two teams that would eventually contest the final, including an RAF Airforce team that took no prisoners, as Roniildo found to his cost when he was nearly halved in two by a particularly meaty challenge! We tied our last match in the section to finish fourth overall! A credible outing in our first tournament! We were the only team that played with no subs and after several hours of playing we were exhausted but ready to party that night..... more to come on that, and the next days "survivors" challenge match in Road trip report 2!

Stay tuned!