Manchester Pride 5-a-side Tournament
August 19th 2006
Squad: Matt Baker, Austin Chessell, Dan Collins, David Ruegg, Andy Salter, Chris Salvage and Paul Wheeler.
The Titans took a weakened and very defensive squad to the Pride games in Manchester. The draw for the first round group paired the Titans with Leicester Wildecats, Yorkshire Terriers, Village Manchester and their London rivals, Stonewall Spartans and Leftfooters FC.
The opening group game against Leicester was a tight encounter, but the Titans gained an early lead after a low corner from Paul Wheeler was flicked on at the near post by Dan Collins for Matt Baker to slot home. Good defensive play from Wheeler and Collins snuffed out any danger created by Leicester. The Titans were unlucky not to make it 2-0 before the end, when Collins headed narrowly wide from another corner by Wheeler. So the Titans were off and running with an early victory.
The second match, against a strong Yorkshire side, was a hard fought encounter with the Titans defending in numbers. The Titans held out for 0-0 with some excellent saves from Chris Salvage in goal. Yorkshire did manage to put the ball in the net, but it was disallowed as being after the final whistle.
The third group game was against a very strong Village Manchester side. It was another hard fought encounter in which Manchester had much of the play, despite the physical approach employed by Collins, Wheeler and Austin Chessell. After a rare Titans attack Village Manchester broke with two on one, and scored past the once-again excellent Salvage.
After this set back the Titans faced two London derbies, with the first against Leftfooters FC. This was a game that the Titans dominated from start to finish, with wave after wave of attack and some excellent football on show. The first goal came from a long probing, diagonal ball from Collins that looked to have picked out Matt Baker perfectly, but which was intercepted by a bewildered Leftfooters defender who knocked it past his own goalkeeper to score an own goal. After this the Titans continued to attack and could have been three or four goals up, but in the event the second goal was finally scored just before the end when Matt Baker finished off a fine move.
With qualification for the quarter finals already assured, the Titans didn’t relax in their final game, against Stonewall. A draw meant winning the group and Stonewall failing to qualify for the next round. In a typical London derby it was end to end stuff, with the Titans taking an early lead after a cool finish from Chessell with his ‘right’ foot. Stonewall equalised soon after from a speculative long range effect which caught the otherwise excellent Salvage by surprise. The Titans almost replied immediately, when a Wheeler pile driver from long distance crashed against the post almost knocking the goal over. The score remained the same, so the group was won and a match against the Dublin Devils awaited in the quarter finals.
After the confidence gained from winning the group, the Titans went into the quarter final against Dublin looking to march through to the semi’s. Sadly after a closely contested match neither side could break the deadlock and the game ended 0-0, so it went down to penalties. Collins took the first penalty for Titans and the Dublin goalkeeper made an excellent save to his left, whilst Dublin scored their first penalty despite Salvage getting a hand to it. Matt Baker stepped up to take the second Titans penalty, but it grazed the side of the post and went wide. Dublin scored their second penalty to win the shoot out 2-0, and so the Titans went out in true England fashion.
In the evening all the teams met up in Canal Street and went on to Cruz 101 where a few of the Titans enjoyed the ‘crack’ with some of the Dublin lads to show no hard feelings – well maybe some!