Andrews Sykes take silver in 7-a-side football tournament

On Sunday 22nd May, a squad of eight Andrews Sykes employees took part in the annual Executive Box holder football tournament held at The Valley. The team had always been eliminated at the knock-out stage in previous years, but there was widespread hope that things would be different in 2016!

A 2-1 victory against Greenwich Inc in the opening group game virtually sealed semi-final qualification after the same team could only draw against Hadlow College. A narrow loss at the hands of Hadlow therefore proved irrelevant but meant Andrews Sykes would face the much-fancied Royal Borough of Greenwich in the penultimate round.

Having won the tournament on each of the last two occasions – avoiding defeat both times – there were few people in attendance who expected us to progress any further. An early goal gave the underdogs something to hang on to and preceded almost 20 minutes of backs-to-the-wall defending before the referee blew for full-time.

That set up an interesting final against M & Building – a team we beat fairly comfortably in 2015. Unfortunately, though, there was to be no repeat of the previous year, with the Andrews Sykes side losing 2-0 to miss out on the winner’s trophy.

Despite a disappointing finale, the players enjoyed competing against people from other companies in a good-spirited nature. We look forward to taking part again next year and hopefully going one better than the second-place finish achieved this time.