Ingleton Wood Charity Football Tournament in aid of St Elizabeth Hospice Thursday, 16th July 2015

On a gloriously sunny afternoon last Friday, 11 teams took part in the annual Ingleton Wood charity football tournament at Rushmere Sports Club, Ipswich. 11 teams played over two leagues with the winners and runners up of each league going through to a semi-final and final stages.

League A consisted of Ingleton Wood A, Conrad Consulting, Birketts, Rose Builders (last year’s champions), Prettys and Bauder. This proved to be a passionately contested league with some stunning skill exhibited by all teams especially Conrad’s and Bauder who eventually finished winners and runners up of the group respectively, both going through to the next round. Rose Builders failed to get out of the group stage along with Ingleton Wood A, who struggled with a mix of injury woes and lack of overall fitness, however we couldn’t possibly win our own tournament so that’s our excuse!

League B consisted of Ingleton Wood B, Ensors, Gipping, Ellisons and Birkett Long. This was also a close call with 3 teams neck and neck for first place of the league with only goal difference separating each team. Ellisons were the eventual clear winners of the league with Gipping Construction a close second. Ingleton Wood B much like their Team A colleagues, struggled for form along with goal scoring in general!

The most talked about game of the tournament was an exhibition match between Ingleton Wood A and Ingleton Wood B. Ingleton Wood B started the game well and were keen to defeat their colleagues given their poor league form. However, after some skilful dribbling from Ben Willett and a goal line scramble, Director Scott Barlow edged one home for Ingleton Wood A.

The semi-finals saw the skilful Conrad’s take on the determined Gipping with Ellisons taking on the mighty power of Bauder. As you would expect with a semi-final, both games were cagy affairs with neither team wanting to give away much, resulted in both games ending in a penalty shootout. First up saw Gipping and Conrad’s trading blows from the penalty spot. Despite some outstanding goal keeping from Gary Bareham from Gipping who threw his body on the line in search of the final, Conrad’s slipped through by a single penalty.

The shootout between Bauder and Ellisons was not so clear cut. After 5 penalty’s each the score remained 0-0 which sent it to sudden death penalties, where after a further 3 penalties still no goals were scored. Ellisons eventually managed to find the back of the net and the hottest prospect of the group stage Bauder failed to convert, which saw Ellisons through to the final against Conrad Consulting.

After a tough 12 minutes of football between Conrad’s and Ellisons the scores were once again locked at 0-0 culminating in another penalty shootout. Once again Ellisons struggled to convert from the spot, however the powerful shooting and accuracy of Conrad’s saw them edge past Ellisons 3-1 on penalties claiming the trophy.

A huge thank you to all the teams that took part on the day, we raised in excess of £600 for St Elizabeth Hospice. We hope that we will see you again next year!