The Brisbane Boro Supporters Club, reached The Semi Finals of The “exciting” Brisbane Supporters Clubs 6 a side Tournament, on Saturday 17th Oct, Sponsered by TNT magazine and The Pig & Whistle British Pub Brisbane. This was a great achievement, considering, we had the oldest squad in the tournament, with all but 2 of us over 40 year old, and we had never played together before this tournament. On a pleasant Brisbane (26c) Spring day,  Boro were drawn against Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Celtic B and Red Bull in the group stage of the tournament. The Boro team got off to a Flyer in the group stages with an emphatic 3 v 0 win against bitter rivals Chelsea, The only team talk needed was, “Revenge for The Cup Finals” Big Phil Gaskin opened the scoring, after only 1 minute on the clock, it was all one way traffic after that, with Gary Hornigold and Aaron Cameron notching a goal a piece. Next up was a very young and fit Arsenal team, who play together every week in the local leagues, but once again The Boro had the lions share of play, only for the Arsenal keeper to make 4 great saves, to earn a 0 v 0 draw. Considering our age and the fact that we hadn’t played together before, we were very solid as a team both in defence and going forward. Red Bull were our next opponents, and probably the favourites in our group, but another all round solid “team” performance, from the Boro kept the scores at 0 v 0. We needed a win against Celtic B, to keep us in with a chance of finishing in the top 2 and qualifying for The Semi Finals. Another great team performance earned us a well deserved 2 v 0 win, with Big Phil Gaskin and Gary Hornigold scoring the goals. With our goal difference of plus 5, we only needed a draw in our last game against a physical Everton team to reach the semi finals. We matched their physical play and should have won the game but for some great saves from their keeper. Once again we kept a clean sheet to draw 0 v 0. So with group stages over we had finished 2nd behind Arsenal 10 points,  Boro on 9 points with 2 wins, 3 draws and 5 clean sheets. It was very funny to be in goal and here players from other teams watching us, saying The Boro might be old but they are very skilful? I think they were complimenting us hahaha???  . The Semi Fianl saw Boro v Man Utd and Arsenal v Celtic A. Man Utd and Celtic A, were the favourites, after hammering everyone in their group, both teams play in the top leagues in Brisbane. But we are “The Boro”, “Men of Steel”  and we gave everything. After 5 games without conceding a goal it was soul destroying  for me to have a “Schwarzeresque” moment (just like The Carling Cup Final) and let a feeble shot somehow squeeze through my hands, under my body and into the net   . But roared on by 20 plus Boro Fans, the team showed great spirit, and threw everything at Man Utd, only for the keeper and the post to deny us a penalty shoot out, Boro 0 v 1 Man Utd (OUCH). Celtic beat Arsenal on penalties, But Man Utd won the Final 2 v 0, so at least we can say we lost to the winners. The main result was that every player and every supporter from every team had a great time at this fantastic family fun day.
On local forums, we have been voted the best supporters
Player of the tournament = Everyone, a great all round team effort.

I'll post some photos soon