London Titans Football Club

London Titans are off to the World Gay Games

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Prague is most famous for the Charles Bridge, built in the 13th century, which every visitor to Prague has to see. There’s a plaque on the bridge, and rubbing it is alleged to bring you good luck.

The Charles Bridge was to end up having an important role to play in the Titans’ roller coaster ride in the Galibi Cup for those with a superstitious disposition!

At last yast’s tourno some (but not all) of the squad rubbed the plaque. We lost in the Final because not everyone rubbed it. Inspired by being last year’s runners up, most of that squad returned this weekend to see if they could go one better.

Last year’s veterans (Aussie, Sally, Rueggy, Miller, and Beal), Birchy, Peter K and old hand Carlos with his German mate Julien and 5-a-sider Tom Hooper (drafted from just over the border in Nuremburg where he’s working) did meet up on Friday night with WAGS Chopper, Ali and me for a few quiet beers at the registration party.

The Tourno kicked off with Titans drawn in the Group of Death – with the Slovakian team containing the hottie Miller fancied from last year, Lyon (who had 2 very good female players in it), and teams from Milan, Frankfurt and Nuremburg. Matches were played on a handball pitch which meant very narrow pitches with handball goals more suited to hockey than footy.

There was little space to play much good football and the ball kept going out of play every 30 seconds or so, and chances and goals were at premium, mostly coming from mistakes. Temperatures in the 80s didn’t help either. But thankfully messrs Beal, Birch and Knight are masters at playing with hangovers!

Drawing 0-0 with Milan in their first game (no sign of Benitez anywhere), the Titans lost the next game 1-0 to Slovakia who scored a stunning free kick. Remember Slovakia are the team with the hottie Miller fancied from last year. Miller was in the wall for the free kick. In fact Miller WAS the wall. The shot was rifled into Sally’s top right hand corner. But there were still 3 games to go.

Next game was against Frankfurt. Aussie put Titans 1-0 up. They equalised. Tom Hooper made it 2-1. They equalized in the last minute. There were now more goals scored in this game than in the whole group so far. With 30 seconds left on the clock Titans broke down the right wing, one of them was fouled as he passed to Beal. Thankfully the ref played the advantage (what on earth he thought the advantage was with Beal having the ball I don’t know) and Matt rifled home the winner in the dying seconds. Titans won 3-2.

On a roll, they went on to beat Nurenburg 1-0 (Beal again) before losing 1-0 to Lyon (the lesbian got the goal, she was really good). Titans had finished 4th in their group and only just made the cut to go into the knock out quarter final stage, where they would play Friends Prague, the winners of the other group and the team who beat them in last year’s Final.

The pressure was immense, but the Titans were getting the hang of how to deal with the narrow pitches, and the rule that goalies couldn’t throw or kick the ball beyond the half way line. That meant very tight marking in their half when their keeper had the ball.

The Prague boys were over confident and soon realized they had a game on their hands when Titans stopped them from playing and managed to kick balls into touch for ‘kick ins’ (there were no throw ins) in their half to box them in. The break came when, in desperation having no clear teammate to pass to, their keeper kicked the ball out on the edge of his area straight to Tom, who chested it down with such force that it deflected off a defender into an empty net. Titans knocked the reigning champions out 1-0 and had got the revenge they came for. Beal is still disputing crediting the goal to Tom and may yet refer it to the sub-committee, if not the IGLFA/FIFA as an OG!

They were winning ugly, but they were winning. In the semis Titans drew Lyon, a team they were confident they could beat having only lost 1-0 in the group stage. Chances were few and far between and the boys knew they had to make them all count.

Thankfully Matt Beal did with a corker of a shot (first time shot you’ll be pleased to hear!) which he turned on a sixpence (that’s the size of a penny in new money, but penny doesn’t have the same ring to it) and lashed into the roof of the French net. That’ll teach them for cheating Ireland out of the World Cup. He was now the Titans’ joint top goalscorer with Tom.

Amazingly, the Titans were again in the Final. Would they manage to go one better and win it this year? They would meet Wildboys Karlsruh. Titans did their best in exhausting heat, after little sleep and a long hardslog of a battle to get to the final, but we lost 2-0 in the final.

Once again the Titans made new friends and were welcomed back by old ones, enhanced the Club’s reputation in international football, lived up to our high standards of teamwork and football, and gave you good reason to be proud of them. I certainly was.

And they all agreed that next year they would meet on the Charles Bridge and rub the lucky statue the day before the tourno.

Big thanks to Aussie for organising it all, and well done to everyone who put a Titan’s shirt on and gave their all for the Club.

London Titans FC saw off teams from around the country to win the 2010 GFSN National Tournament in Blackpool.

More to follow…

As you will be aware our fixtures on 10th January (Romans Emperors v Titans W5 and Titans OutWest v Romans Caesars in the LUL League) and 17th January (Falcons v Titans in the GFSN League) had to be postponed due to the weather.  We are seeking to reschedule these games as soon as we can agree revised dates, so please check back here for new fixture dates.  Please note that owing to our heavy schedule some of these matches will need to be arranged times outside our normal Sunday afternoon slots; apologies in advance to those who will be impacted by this but there are simply not enough Sundays before the end of the season, plus we are trying to get matches in before the London Boroughs close their football pitches down in mid-April.

On a happier note there are two tournaments that we are planning to attend in addition to the World Gay Games (31 July to 7 August in Cologne).  These are the Stockholm tournament over Easter weekend (2-5 April) and the GFSN Summer Get Together which will be in Blackpool on 12-13 June.  Further details will be announced in the Forum.