News Story

KMi Football Fun Night 2004

Paul Alexander, Friday 6 Aug 2004

KMi’s first (hopefully annual) football fun night took place on Wednesday 4th August 2004. The event organised by KMi’s own “Wayne Rooney”, IT & Systems Manager Paul Alexander was to meet the Directors demand for a greater level of fitness due to late arrival in the morning after climbing the 300+ steps up the Berrill Building.

Two teams were formed by random draw (Handled by Damian Dadswell for those that disagreed with the selection!), and were captained by Paul and KMi Director Enrico Motta. The teams were:

Paul Alexander
Robbie Bays (Friend of Paul’s)
John Domingue
David Bradbury
Chris Valentine
Trevor Collins
Simon Buckingham-Shum (Goal Keeper)

Enrico Motta
Damian Dadswell
Mark Gaved
Jianhan Zhu
Neil Benn
Denilson Sell
Dnyanesh Rajpathak (Goal Keeper)

The game started without Enrico due to problems getting to the ground, in his absence his team started by complaining about the number of “professionals” in the opposition team. A huge number of early chances were squandered by Paul’s Team, most of them by Paul….. due to the most incredible goal keeping ever seen by Dnyanesh. Simon wasn’t to be outdone at the other end, saving well on 3 occasions, though it might have had something to do with Neil’s shooting.

Not long before half-time, the first breakthrough came as a ball forward by Dnyanesh resulted in Jianhan slotting the ball low to Simon’s left, 1-0 to the Director’s team (still without him). Not long after this and half-time arrived, with the score line remaining the same.

The teams stopped for a quick drink and several heart-attacks due to the heat and lack of fitness…. and then eventually got going again after some persuasion from the crowd.

Paul’s team began by pushing forward, trying to get an early goal. Their effort’s were fruitless as Enrico’s team (Still without him) managed to counter-attack and a fantastic shot by Dnyanesh resulted in a 2-0 score line. It was looking bad for half of KMi.

As the game continued, a flurry of “hand-ball” calls from both sides resulted in…. no real gain for either side and after a few difficult chances, again Paul’s team were punished on the break by Enrico’s team (he had now turned up…) as they took a 3-0 lead through a shot by the ever eager Neil.

Simon swapped with Chris and one of the first things he did was a run and shoot but couldn’t find the illusive goal that Paul’s team were looking for. However with 5 minutes remaining a sublime and quite frankly amazing pass by Paul (Ed – well, you expect me to say it was ordinary?) set John up for a wonderful goal which was smacked with pace past the despairing hand of Denilson (who was now in goal).

There was time for Enrico’s team to come forward again, but despite a flurry of shots on the goal being defended by Chris, they couldn’t make it 4-1.

The final whistle sounded and it was congratulations all round for everyone who took part. Lets hope next year’s event is as much fun as this year and that this isn’t the last football played by everyone before next year!

My own special thanks to everyone who took part and also to the spectators who turned up.