Jimmy Sevilla become champions!
After a long summer of football, we entered the final week of the 2017 season full of anticipation with four possible title-winners, but due to some commitment issues and a lot of pouting, that number was reduced to two as Scouting for Goals and CrownEroon failed and refused to raise a team to complete the fixture list.
This meant that Jimmy Sevilla, positioned at second would get 3pts by way of a walk over victory, leaving only Honey Badger able to top them in the final games.
And it was Honey Badger up first, with the trophy in their sights they set out to take an early lead, and take one they did, through a nice finish from Lyndon Thomas. But they soon found their opponents, FC Snorkel, in no mood to allow them to stroll to the tile as they took a 2-1 lead. Plenty of chances came and went and when Snorkel took a 3-2 lead, the Badgers started to gamble forward a little more in search of the two goals that would land them first place. But a final nail in the coffin was delivered and the dejected Badger players found the two-goal deficit too difficult to claw back. Snorkel, much to the delight of the watching Jimmy Sevilla players, saw the game out and sent the Badgers home wondering how they could slip from first to fourth on the very last week of the season.
The other game of the night had significance for just one of the teams, with the Park Arabs able to secure second place on goal difference with a win, they set about to enjoy themselves as they tore apart The Vaders time and again. Nathan Whelan found himself in acres of space all night and punished The Vaders each and every time as a helplessly exposed Robert Boydell in goal could only watch each shot hit the corner of the net – Whelan was clearly breaking the no-slamsies-from-close-range rule, but he didn’t care as the Arabs racked up an unassailable lead. The Vaders had a little run of replies in the second half, mostly thanks to neat finishes from Ethan Tyzack, to make it look a little closer than it was, and there were even some fisticuffs at the end, but the Arabs secured the 3pts they needed with the game ending 11-6.
It’s the third time in four seasons the Park Arabs have finished second, and they will look back and rue bad results against the likes of Scouting for Goals and FC Snorkel in an otherwise impressive campaign.
And so to our champions…
I’m sure they would have preferred to have won the title with an on-field victory, but nevertheless Jimmy Sevilla take away the Jay ‘Elvis’ Thomas Memorial Shield for 2017.
A quite remarkable rise from the Sports Centre United team in 2014, who struggled massively to win many games, the Jimmy Sevilla boys have added more quality and changed a few players since then and seem to have improved every season, culminating in a very impressive title win this year.
A title win built on a strong unit and rock solid defence, remarkably they have scored less goals than any other team in the league this season, but never conceding more than 5 in a single game kept them ahead of the rest and they run out deserved winners.
Truthfully, they could have probably sealed victory a couple of weeks back but could never quite open up a gap at the top when opportunity arose. They have however, provided some great matches and scored some lovely goals, particularly from the left foot of Tom Atyeo, and goalkeeper Christian Davies has been mostly superb all season, earning five man of the match awards. Top goalscorer Luke Whittaker played a vital part in close games and popped up with crucial goals throughout the campaign.
But it was mostly about the team as a whole – defending and attacking as one, with maximum effort and a fair amount of quality on the ball. They have earned each victory and fought tough in each draw and loss, so credit to them.
On behalf of myself, Rob and everyone else involved in the league this season, I’d like to take this opportunity to say congratulations and well done to Jimmy Sevilla!
Player awards
For individual player awards, Lewis Kingdon finishes as top goalscorer on 21 (the second time he has won the golden boot in four years), and player of the season goes to Honey Badger’s Rhys Dyke, who scored 14 goals, won six man of the match awards and was largely impressive throughout the season.
Both worthy winners, congratulations lads!
End of season thanks
I just want to finish off by thanking everyone who put in the effort to play each week and played in the right spirit of the game (most of the time). The gap between all the teams has never been so narrow and it made for competitive games every week, with only a handful of drubbings all year.
It has been a massive shame with the amount of games forfeited this season, and if we are to continue at all in future we will need to look at making some changes to eradicate this. Probably reducing the number of weeks to reduce clashing with football/rugby training and pre-season.
It’s been testing and tiring but it’s been mostly positive, and as always its been a pleasure watching your goals, tackles, passes and f*ck-ups, and we’ve had a good laugh along the way too.
Thank you.