A large group of spectators were forced to endure a nervous penalty shoot-out as route development and commercial executives from airlines and airports, suppliers to the industry and Routes own staff proved their skills are not just limited to the boardroom, but also extend to the football pitch.
At the end of the final day of this year’s event more than 30 delegates arrived at the Chelsea Football Club facility at the host hotel, Forte Village Resort, to unwind after two days of business with a friendly kick-about. The resort has built a strong reputation through the years for its sporting facilities and this particular area provides football fans an opportunity to improve their skills under a team of highly specialised trainers who are supervised by professional coaches from the famous English Premiership club.
Over recent years, the facilities have been used by national squads from England (2004) and Germany (2006), while Inter Milan has been using the resort as its summer meeting place since 2005. However, this week famous names as Ballack, Beckham, Crespo, Figo, Gerrard, Ibrahimovic, Khan, Lampard, Owen, Rooney, Terry, Totti, Veron and Vieira whose skills had previously graced the synthetic grass fields were replaced with the lesser-known Balan, Bell, Bland, Bohl, Camara, Clarkson, Griffin, Hallwood, Haynes, Maslen, Mayes, McMullen, Moore, Mulligan, Paydon, Ricketts, Smith, Todd, Watkins, Winfield and many others.
The names may not be well recognised in the world of football but many observers believed that their performances almost matched the quality of their peers. Under the control of Newcastle International Airport’s Chief Executive Officer, Davie Laws, who has previously officiated in the top flight of English football and is now a qualified Football Association Assessor ranking the performance of Premier League referees, a strong spirited performance was put in by all. There were a number of strong committed tackles but Davie Laws kept a good control of proceedings and after three games the small crowd of screaming fans who had come to watch their colleagues, were treated to the event finale.
Although the two top teams could not be separated across two halves of ten minutes, the 0-0 score line did not reflect the game with some outstanding skills from players on both teams. In the end it took a penalty shoot-out to decide the winners, before both teams were presented with medals and a bottle of wine to mark the occasion.
Thanks to everyone that came along to the kick-about and the strong numbers in the stand supporting their efforts, although I have subsequently learned that they were more interested in the players legs than their skills on the pitch. Thanks also to Davie Laws for agreeing to referee the tournament at fairly late notice. It is likely that we will try to repeat this at future Routes events, so lookout in the event programmes at future forums if you wish to join in the action.
Related Content
