On Saturday 5th October, Barnes entered a team into the Soho FC 9 a side birthday tournament. With a fixture on Sunday 6th, the team featured a mix of 11 a side first team regulars and some small sided social players also.
With 8 teams from across London participating in the tournament, the format was simple – 2 groups of 4 with the top 2 from each progressing to knock out stages. The day started with what the team saw as 2 points dropped after conceding a last minute goal to level the scores. A couple of games later and the mighty Barnes had stormed through to the knock out stages only to face the tournament favourites and previous year’s tournament winners. Featuring tough tackling midfielders and strong defenders, this was certainly a big test for Barnes but they played their absolute best football of the tournament matching the opposition physically and mentally but were unfortunately caught off guard by a long range effort that sunk the hopes of Barnes Stormers and knocked them out of the competition.
What followed was hours of drinking and team building as the squad got over their loss and celebrated the fun they’d had. It will forever be known as the night Ash and Jacko lost the away kit….(and found it again in the back of their Uber 4 days later after it returned from Newcastle).
Squad (left to right): Back; John Syfret (DF), Mo (MF), Ryan Macklin (DF), Abdi (MF), Armano Dragic (MF), Ronin Dragic (ST), Shaun McLernon (DF), Pio Louis (GK), James Bateman (MF), Alex McGuire (MF) Front; Tom Jackson (DF) & Ash Bertram (MF & C)