The winter gloom hung heavy into this past spring as the ranks of the Barnstonworth Rovers travelling squad withered one by one. Was yet another Rovers annual trip to be cancelled?!? Ladies and Gentlemen - This club has travelled to Finland, Ireland, Norway, Estonia, Hungary, and Argentina - but we could not seem to field a squad for international travel for the last 3 years. In the end a meager squad of six determined old men made the trip this last week to Barbados for the largest Master's O-40 Soccer Tournament in the world. This fateful lack of manpower would turn out to be the best thing that has happened to a Rover's travelling squad in its entire travelling history.
The trip was organized by Mastermind Mike Messmer so we all knew, at very least, we would have a few warm beers to drinks. While holding out that scenario as our "worst case" scenario, we ran into the Pele Master players at the airport (a perennial winner of our NYC league) all getting on the same flight to Barbados obviously going for the same tournament. In Barbados, however, they were known as the Vincy Masters and were last years champion. Our motley crew sighed, assessed our crippled status and diminished chances, and dreamt of warm beer.
Due to our lack of numbers, Mike had set up a co-joining of forces with a local team, Empire, to help swell our ranks and perhaps field a full squad for our first game. We knew nothing of them and assumed that the situation would be similar to NYC in that we would get a smattering of decent players who were friends of friends to maybe show up for the match. It would be disorganized and a hassle. We could not have been more wrong. Not only did they show up with more than enough players to play all our matches, but they showed us the finest hospitality and introduced us to a far better experience then we could have possibly had on our own.
They even came with a coach! - Coach Julian. Although most of us could only understand every third sentence he said in his thick Barbadian accent, his points always managed to get home, and he lead us to a very respectable showing in a tournament we fully expected to get trounced in.
The tournament itself was proving to be a fairly well oiled machine. In its 13th year and held mainly at the Wanderers clubhouse, our host "Starsky" (a native of Manchester - yes- nicknamed after THE Starsky & Hutch) kept a lively, organized, timely, friendly eye on everything. Another main organizer, Grant, sported pink colored cornrows to match his squads pink and black uniforms. These men and all the other locals we met in a drunken stupor on the final match day (having been eliminated at this point) showed us a little mercy and bestowed us with the "Fete Trophy". Basically it is given to the team that shows the best tournament spirit, but you can translate that into "which team drinks the most while maintaining a friendly disposition". Our pride of six Rovers drank like 20 men that day. I am so proud of each and every one of you! I believe this is the first international trophy that the Rovers can now display in their clubhouse.....if we had one.
After our first game (which we won with goals from Mackers, Weiner, and a Barbadian Striker who's name escapes me - sorry!) the best part of the trip began. The Empire team took us all back to their clubhouse. The experience was humbling and exhilarating. Empire Club was founded 95 years ago! Almost every club there was multiples of years older than Barnstonworth (a mere babe at 16 years old...). They had their own field and a clubhouse bar with changing rooms and showers. They had a room where they had tea and scones in the middle of cricket matches! They had rum and a local beer known as "Banks" that made us very drunk, jolly, and hungry. They solved all of this by giving us more drinks and showing us to the local rice, fish, and chicken shack round the corner from their clubhouse. They fed us, watered us, enthralled us with their history, and drove us home in time to rest for the next day's match. One of their most enthusiastic players known as "Tweety" even subdued Olli out of a minor rage with sweet words. For this brave deed we gave him his new nickname - "Conan the Barbadian".
Our second match was against the host team, the Wanderers. They were the heavy favorite in the match but we gave them a decent run for their money, holding them 0-0 at the half and even after they scored Olli managed to loft a direct kick into the upper right corner. They took the lead again in the final 3 minutes. 2-1.
Our third match was against the Combined Forces (police and army guys) who suffered from a lack of players as we might have without Empires help. They were beaten fairly easily by all their opponents and luckily we triumphed as well with 1 from Weiner and 2 from Conan the Barbadian himself. Apparently the first goals he has scored in years - the crowd went wild. This win got us 2nd place in our group and a thrashing the next day from the winner of another division, Black Rock 2-0. A respectable 2-2 finish for the tournament.
Did I mention crowds? On the day of the semi's and the finals, the crowd at the club slowly built until it peaked somewhere between 6-800 people - this on the only rainy day we had. Apparently a crowd of 2000 is not uncommon. In fact, once we were far enough into seeing double we were convinced they were going to run out of beer due to overcrowding so we hurried to drink faster.
We worked hard for that trophy. We earned every drop of it. I can tell you all one more thing - we'll be back to win the "Fete Trophy" again next year but at the same time we are going to go after the second most important trophy - 1st place. Although we will have even more old men over 40 by next year in the clubhouseless club called Barnstonworth, don't any of you feel forced into going because we and the Empire Boys can take care of business if you can't make it.
The proud squad of Rover diehards: Olli, Mackers, Weiner, Messmer, Artis, and Alexander (posing as a kit lady)
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