Atlantic Rovers Tour 2011 (Part 2!)

Hope you all had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving! Now the season is over I thought I would get back to telling you all about the Atlantic Rovers tour in Scotland! Part 2 is below;

Last year the Atlantic Rovers finished in a creditable 4th position in the tournament with a squad of only 7 players. This year we were hoping to build on that as we had a strong squad of 9 players! Our first game was against one of the stronger three Elgin Marbles teams and even though we had managed a good draw against them in the previous years tournament there was no repeat as they took the game by the scruff of the neck and caught the Rovers cold. We were a goal down before we knew it and struggling to get in the game. Just as we thought we might get a grip of the game they scored again to send us to defeat and start off our tournament in the worst possible way. Before dwelling on that too much we went into our second game against one of the other Elgin teams and had a much better game. The Rovers scored a couple of great goals to take the pressure off, and although we gave a goal back Tam's organization of the back allowed the team to hold on for victory. Our last match in the section was against our "old" rivals the Edinburgh based Narey's. We had to beat them to advance to the the "Champions league" knockout section of the tournament. It was a very competitive game and the Rovers were by far the best team, which was empathized by a great goal from Tam. With only minutes left in the game and the Rovers heading for the next round a cruel deflected shot found its way into the back of the Rovers net handing the Narey's the point they needed to advance and to send the Rovers into the "losers section". The team was still dealing with this cruel blow as we started the next game and with our heads totally out to lunch we crashed to a 3-0 defeat! We now faced the prospect of finishing last as we got to our last game against another Marbles team. Luckily we got our act together and won the game well with some good goals and great defending. We then watched the Elgin Marbles team deservedly win the final game to become tournament champions. A disappointing tournament for the Rovers but great fun!

We managed to get back to the hotel without crashing and headed out for a great post tournament party where Tam was voted player of the tournament and my bro Brian won top goalscorer....how did we finish 7th!! Well we had the big International challenge match on the Sunday and we were the current holders after winning last year... could we keep the trophy? Find out in part 3 coming soon!