Martin Dawson Trophy 2017
Martin Dawson Trophy 2017 – Beaten By The Weather
Unfortunately the Martin Dawson Trophy 2017 was beaten by the atrocious weather yesterday at the Heywood Sports Village. What promised to be a great day’s walking football with teams from far and wide ended in a washout with torrential downpours.
First of all a massive thanks to the teams who travelled from the West Midlands, Sheffield, Wakefield, Huddersfield and the Fylde Coast to take part in the Martin Dawson Trophy 2017. With our more local teams it made twelve teams in two divisions.
Division A consisted of Hartshill Strollers, Rochdale AFC Strollers, Tameside Striders, Vintage Celtic, Wakefield Wanderers Blue and Wakefield Wanderers Orange. Division B consisted of AFC Blackpool Senior Seasiders, Blackburn Rovers WF, Fleetwood Town Flyers, Huddersfield Town, Rochdale Striders and Sheffield Vulcans.
The round robin divisional format saw some impressive football with a total of 42 goals scored in the 30 games played. 17 goals were scored in Division A, 9 by the impressive Wakefield Wanderers Orange. In Division B the majority of the 25 goals scored were shared by Blackburn Rovers WF with 8, Huddersfield Town with 7 and Sheffield Vulcans with 6.
Wakefield Wanderers Orange topped Division A with 13 points from a possible 15. Runners up were Rochdale AFC Strollers with 8 points. Hartshill Strollers gained 7 points, Tameside Striders and Vintage Celtic had 4 points each and Wakefield Wanderers Blue had 2 points.
Maureen Dawson With The Wakefield Wanderers Orange Team, Winners Of The Martin Dawson Memorial Trophy 2017
Division B was more competitive with both Blackburn Rovers WF and Sheffield Vulcans gaining 11 points, Blackburn just edging it with a better goal difference of +7 to Sheffield’s +5. Huddersfield Town, with a bare squad of six players, had a creditable 10 points. AFC Blackpool Senior Seasiders had 4 points, Rochdale Striders also had 4 points and Fleetwood Town Flyers had 1 point.
Maureen Dawson With The Blackburn Rovers WF Team, Runners Up In The Martin Dawson Memorial Trophy 2017
The semi-finals, beaten by the downpour, would have seen Blackburn Rovers WF versus Rochdale AFC Strollers and Wakefield Wanderers Orange versus Sheffield Vulcans. It’s pure speculation as to who would have contested the final as all four teams were impressive on the day.
As it turned out we felt the only option open to us was to choose the winners with the most points in the round robin divisional games. Runners up were Blackburn Rovers WF and the winners were Wakefield Wanderers Orange who retained their trophy after winning in 2016.
Once again a big thanks to our four excellent referees, Frank Bergin, Alan Graham, Matt Howells and Mike Willmore. Also to Paul Gardner and his team for the venue organisation and catering.
We hope all teams enjoyed the day, apart from the weather and will return next year, hopefully under better conditions.
The ever growing Greater Manchester Walking Football Over 60’s League starts the second session of the Autumn season on the 6th October, report on the September session is HERE or see our FA Full Time website HERE.
Finally, feel free to leave a comment below on the Martin Dawson Trophy 2017 days events.
Thanks again from AFC Blackpool for the organisation of the Competition. Always difficult when the weather tries to take over the event. The guys all enjoyed their day out and look forward to the next round of the GM League in October. Cheers
Steve, I cannot understand all these comments that the participants are making about a little Manchester drizzle.
A very well run event with very helpful staff, good companionship with the other teams and the best set of referees we have encountered. We will definitely be back. Enjoyed the Manchester sunshine too.
Many thanks from all the Hartshill Strollers players.
A great days football despite the weather. This was the best organised tournament we have played in and standard of referees was excellent. All participants were competitive but in a non aggressive way. Hope to meet up with you all again sometime in better conditions.
Despite the weather this was an enjoyable experience. Perhaps the friendliest tournament I have experienced with a lack of tension about the games although of course, we all wanted to win if possible. The Refereeing helped a lot of course. Well done to the organisers for ‘thinking on their feet’ and reaching a sensible, alternative format.
Respect to Maureen and to the memory of her late Husband, who I’m sure would be pleased to know his name is honoured in this way annually. More on our own website in due course, including links to photo’s and some video of us and some of our opponents. Unfortunately the monsoon like conditions meant video had to be curtailed and we couldn’t shoot our last match v. Vintage Celtic.
Just a quick thank you to you all from the players and supporters of Blackburn Rovers WF 60+ team for a great day yesterday. We all thoroughly enjoyed what was our second trip to Heywood. In spite of the appalling weather it was a well run, friendly afternoon with quite a few familiar faces and a number of new ones as well.
The weather may think it won but the real winners were the 100 or so players, refs, administrators and spectators who all got together and made it all worth while.
Although I didn’t know Martin but I’m sure that he was looking on and would have been pleased as punch with the day, walking football bringing people together and providing a stage for physical and mental stimulation and friendship which benefits so many.
Thanks again, I trust that you will be repeating next year (although maybe not quite with so much rain!), and assuming that you are, please count us in.
All the best
Tony Jones
Blackburn Rovers WF
Hi Bill
Thank you for the invite, we really struggled to raise a squad due to holidays and injuries and loaned a keeper from Man City to make up the team. We all really enjoyed it, and all the games were played in good spirit and a very sporting manner. The condition weren’t great but some of the passing and movement of the teams and goalkeeping was very impressive.
The refereeing was also to a high standard. We commented about the checking of id which is a good move, as we have entered competitions previously where ‘ringers’ have been allowed to play. The Lovely spread of food and drink was most welcome after the games. Thank you and congratulations on a great event. We will be interested in being invited to your future events.
Cheers
Bob Hey – Huddersfield WF
Many thanks from all at Wakefield for the invite to play and for the chance to retain the trophy. Wish we had the chance to have battled it out with Blackburn or Vulcans but crikey it was wet and we were relieved to be coming in after standing in the Lancashire rain!
Great organisation from Bill and Paul, you certainly are leading in the tournament organisation stakes! The referees were some of the best we have encountered – many thanks to all the opponents for the spirit in which the games were played.
Niall ODonnell, Chairman Wakefield Walking Football – follow us on Facebook.