UK Futsal News: Issue 1

The UK’s first dedicated futsal news publication

INSIDE ISSUE 1 THIS WEEK: The Big Interview:

Middlesbrough manager Damon Shaw - page 4

Fixtures:All the matches for the 2010 season’s kick-off - page 5

England on Tour: Goalkeeping coach Tony Elliott’s Libya diary - page 6-7

Sunday, January 10, 2010 Issue 1

FEATURES:

England’s bigwin in Africa

FA NationalLeague kick-off

Stats, fixturesand previews for thenew season

Pre-seasonmatch reports

Sunday, January 10, 2010 UK Futsal News Issue 1 -2-

UK Futsal NewsEditor: David Smeathers

Email: [email protected] is designed and Produced in

Leeds

We are currently looking for writersand general contributions to UKFN.If you have a story and would like tosee it published please send it in to

the editor.

For advertising opportunities or general enquiries again use the

editor’s contact details.

Welcome to UKFN

Welcome readers to the first ever edition of UK Futsal News, a dedicated futsal news magazine following England, Scotland, Walesand Northern Ireland’s biggest andbest futsal teams throughout the season. From the English FA national futsalleagues to the FPL in Scotland we willbe covering as many fixtures, resultsand news stories as possible over thecoming few months. If you are from afutsal club in the UK, get in contactwith us with your story or news andwe’ll do our best to get it published. Issue number 1 has been coincided tobe released on the day of the openingfixtures in the FA National Futsalleague in England. If you would like tosubscribe to the magazine please follow the details listed overleaf. We thank you for reading and hopeyou enjoy UK Futsal News.

English FA national futsalleagues fully prepared for2010 season kick-off

The FA Futsal cup which has ransince 2003 is to be dropped for 2010which could bring the FA’s commitment to promoting futsal inEngland into disrepute. The showpiece competition, which iscurrently held by Southern leagueside Helvecia, has been seen as achance for teams not competiting inthe national league setup to competeagainst the country’s best teams. Last season’s competition saw Helvecia triumph 2-1 in a tight finalover Loughborough. Thirty-two teams in both men’s andwomens divisions qualified for thecompetition which, like its footballingequivalent, is seen as the most important trophy to win in the futsalcalendar.

Issue no. 1

Futsal FA Cup

AFTER a three month wait,England’s futsal elite will todayreturn to the big stage for thethird year of the FA nationalfutsal competitions.

Twenty-four teams from thenorth, midlands and south willall compete for six places inthe national play-offs for achance to be named Englishnational league champions2010.

This year has seen a reshuffle in both the northernand midlands conferences withnew arrivals, teams switching divisions and some even dropping out altogether.

In the north, last season’sseven team division has beenupped to eight in line with therest of the leagues.

Champions Middlesbroughstay in the league along withManchester Futsal Club andGrimsby and are joined by nofewer than five new, albeit familiar, sides this season.

Liverpool Futsal Club andOldham Athletic Futsal Clubboth joined the northernleague this year after

qualifying through a five-teamplay-off in October 2009. The2010 season will be their firstever involvement at the topflight of English futsal.

Sheffield and Hallamshirehave joined with local rivalsSheffield FC and have alreadybeen tipped as being titlefavourites after the capture ofEngland internationals BenMortlock and Curtis Holmesfrom Tranmere Victoria.

Last season’s basementstrugglers FC Barsa, fromLeeds, have dropped out ofthe league for 2010 to be replaced by a newly-formedside, Leeds Futsal Club, comprised of players fromlocal universities and the former FC Barsa squad.

Tranmere Victoria, northernchampions in 2008, have rejoined the division after asuccessful spell in the midlands conference wherethey won the title at the firsttime of asking.

The midlands league hasalso seen huge changes following the three-month

break between seasons. Champions Tranmere have

gone back to the north, andlast season’s third placed sideThe New Saints have left theleague.

Loughborough Futsal clubhave made the step from northto midlands after an impressive season where theyfinished as league runner-upand made the FA Cup finalonly to lose to southern sideHelvecia.

Chippenham, Hereford andStamford join the 2009 cohortto make up this year’s contingent of eight teams.

The southern league remainsuntouched from 2009 with two-time victors Helvecia aiming for a third title in a rowto add to their FA Cup winnersmedals won last year.

Teams in the northern leaguewill also enjoy home fixturesfor the first time, moving awayfrom the centralised venue inSheffield.

For a full roundup of today’snational league fixtures seepage 5.

by David Smeathers

Message from the Editor, DavidSmeathers...

Welcome all to the first ever edition of UKFutsal News and thank you all for taking timeout to read. This paper has been put together with thehelpful hands of several members of the UKfutsal community and a fair bit of graft frommyself. I’ll try not to bore you too much with my his-tory but you’ll have to endure at least a littleof it!I am currently living and working in Leeds

and I am still associated with Leeds FutsalClub, trying, usually in vain, to maintain my-self as a player. Recently I completed acourse in print journalism, hence my obses-sion with the newspaper or magazine format.If you feel there is a hefty bias towardsLeeds, and, in fact, the northern futsal confer-ence, then you’d be right. Due to the fact thisis a free magazine, it’s difficult to compile de-tailed news on anything other than what I canattend myself and what generous people sendin themselves. If you have enjoyed reading the content inthis publication but you feel you can con-tribute more in terms of depth and features,

please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.I am always on the lookout for help with thisproject and for it to work it is going to relyheavily on the feedback and input it gets fromits readers. Hopefully I haven’t put you off too much ofwhat I think you will find is an informativeand interesting read, there’s not much left forme to say but please enjoy this first issue, tellas many people as you can about it and we’lltry to make this one of the best futsal newspublications in the UK.

Thank you again for your support and lets alllook forward to an action packed 2010.

Sunday, January 10, 2010 UK Futsal News Issue 1 -3-Sunday, January 10, 2010 UK Futsal News Issue 1 -3-

Liverpool Futsal Clubjoin English top flightBy Ronnie JohnsonLiverpool Futsal Club Manager

Liverpool Futsal Club tookpart in the FA National FutsalLeague North Playoff Finals atHillsborough Leisure Centre inSheffield. We competed against Albert

Park Futsal Club, East CoastFutsal Club, Oldham AthleticFutsal Club and University ofYork Futsal Club for a place inthe FA National Futsal LeagueNorth in January 2010. Every-one played each other onceand the top two teams in theleague were promoted. The games were ten minutes

each half, no time outs and 3accumulated fouls per half al-lowed. This format meant allthe ten games could beplayed in a day.Liverpool Futsal Club vs East

Coast Futsal Club: East Coastare a relatively new side whoplayed in the Errea Cup re-cently against National leaguesides from England andUruguay. We opened the scor-ing after 7 minutes and Eng-land International Tom Obasiadded a second goal for usminutes later. Two minutesinto the second half PeteCatling made it 3-0 for us.Rob Haworth added a fourthgoal with 5 minutes to go. Agreat start for us, finishing 4-0.Liverpool Futsal Club vs Uni-

versity of York Futsal Club:University of York are the old-est Futsal playing University,

playing the game since 1998.York took the lead against therun of play after five minutes.Rob Haworth equalised for usand we made it 2-1 minuteslater. We bombarded themsecond half hitting the bar andthe post five times. Yorkstarted to think their luck wasin and theyequalised withminutes to go.With minutes leftwe gambled withplaying a flykeeper to win thepoints. A defen-sive mix up in thelast minute giftedYork the winnerand we lost 3-2very muchagainst the run ofplay.At this point our

heads were down. Looking atthe results and fixtures it be-came clear that goal differ-ence could now play a big partin deciding the competition.Oldham were unbeaten andourselves and York had lost agame. With York having thebetter goal difference. Wewent into the third gameknowing we had to improveour goal difference in thatgame with us due to play un-beaten Oldham last game.Liverpool Futsal Club vs Al-

bert Park Futsal Club: Ourlads responded brilliantly. Itwas now clear to us we had towin our remaining games toqualify and we had to improve

our goal difference in thisgame to put pressure on theother teams. Tom Obasiopened the scoring on threeminutes, only for Albert Parkto equalise a minute later.Tom added his second goalon nine minutes and com-pleted a superb first half hat-

trick in the lastminute to give us a 3-1 lead at half-time.We made it 4-1 inthe opening minuteof the second half.We added a fifth fourminutes later andmade it 6-1 a minutelater. Albert Parkpulled a goal backwith two minutes togo for it to finish 6-2to us.York had now

played all theirgames and we had Oldham toplay in our last game, whohad won all their games. Wehad to beat Oldham to securea top two finish and goal dif-ference would decide who gotpromoted with us. LiverpoolFutsal Club vs Oldham Ath-letic Futsal Club: The matchstarted slowly. Obviously nowgoal difference was importantand Oldham could not affordto lose by two goals or theywould go out. 7 minutes intothe first half Oldham scoredand went in at half time 1-0up. At his point we were deadand buried. Oldham had shutup shop and were blockingeverything we could throw at

them. We kept piling on thepressure. Then we got anequaliser with a few minutesleft. A draw still wasn't goodenough and with the gameinto the last minute we re-mained in third place....thenwith 7 seconds left on theclock. Oldham gave away adaft foul by our goal. We hada 10 metre penalty with 7 sec-onds left. Oldham didn't evenlook like they knew what washappening. I could barelylook. We've been playing for 4years and this next kick woulddecide whether we had madeit to the Futsal elite or not.Everything hinged on it for ourclub. It was all slow motionnow. The keeper in Futsaldoesn't not have to stay on hisline and he had made sometremendous stops throughoutthe game. Bang. Goal. Theplace erupts. Full Time 2-1 toLiverpool. I knew we quali-fied, but in the heat of the mo-ment I thought we weresecond. It didn't matter, aslong as we'd qualified. Theplayers celebrated then it be-came obvious what had hap-pened. In 7 seconds, we had gone

from being third place and notqualifying to winning the com-petition. Heartbreak for Yorkas they go out on goalsscored with the same goal dif-ference as Oldham. So nowLiverpool Futsal Club will playin the FA National FutsalLeague North in the 2009-2010.

Would you like toadvertise here? UKFN is offering ad-vertising spaces toanyone interested ingaining a little moreexposure for theircompany or business.To advertise, all youneed to do is contactthe editor stating thesize, images, andcontent requirementsfor a full quote. Weare happy to sell ad-

vertising space forany futsal related ven-tures or even teamslooking for that extrabit of promotion.Prices are low and de-pendant on size. Weare selling space foranything from a smalltwo-inch advert to afull or double page.Contact the editor [email protected]

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England’s national side ran out 2-1 win-ners over African champions Libya in thesecond of their two game series in earlyDecember. Luke Ballinger and Ben Mortlock scoredthe goals that saw the three lions defeat aside ranked 65 places higher in the worldrankings.England had lost previously to Libya 3-2in their last meeting in December 2008 atthe Sir David Wallace Building in Lough-borough. Their latest results have been a far cryfrom their first results in 2006 when ateam made up from players picked fromthe footballing non-league were handedout drubbings from the more establishedfutsal order. For a full diary of England’s tour in Libyasee page 6-7

Three lions winThe big InterviewEvery month UKFN will be speaking to one of the leading characters in UK futsal.This week Middlesbrough manager Damon Shaw tell us about his career so far.

UKFN: Welcome andthank you fortalking withUKFN

DS: It's apleasure!UKFN: Howlong have you

been involved in the UK futsalscene?

I got involved with futsal in2005 and set up Teesside University Futsal Club in the October of that year, so it's pushing five years now. I actually discovered The FA Futsal Cup inthe April of that year and tried toassemble a team to play in that,but the Durham league never wentahead.UKFN:You've had a helpinghand in a lot of the good workin futsal in the North of England, how far has the itcome since you first got involved?

DS: When I set up the club,there were no competitions toplay in. There was no structurednational competition and it wasdown to regional organisers to runleagues to provide finalists forThe FA Futsal Cup.

We are now into the 3rd seasonof the FA Futsal League, the university championship is thebiggest competition in the UK andmost clubs have a good structureso we have come a long way andI’m proud to have been a part ofthat. We are still at the start of ajourney, but we are heading in theright direction.

I don't think it will be too longuntil we see contract players andthat will be a huge milestone.UKFN: What else needs to bedone to make futsal more popular across the UK?

DS: There needs to be moremedia coverage and it's up toclubs to do this regionally. It alsoneeds to be more accessible toanybody, but the lack of facility isa major barrier.

The good thing is, schools arebuying in to futsal and in Teessidea lot of schools are playing futsalas part of their curriculum. A lotof kids know about it now so wejust need to keep up the work andin time, it will become very popular!UKFN: There has been rumoursthat some of the FA nationalleagues could be televised, whatdo you make of these rumours?Is televising English futsal a real possibility?

DS: It’s great if it’s true, but Idoubt there isn't enough money inthe game. The odd game eachweek would be doable and wouldmassively raise the profile of thesport. The FA have excellent linkswith ITV so to show one gameeach week can’t be that much toask. I think futsal deserves a slot,

even if it is at 5am, we would beover the moon! UKFN: You've been in charge ofMiddlesbrough since it startedout and enjoyed your most suc-cessful season last year, how fardo you think you can take theTeessiders in the future?

DS: Since I started my ambitionis to win the UEFA Cup withBoro. It’s not going to be any timesoon as we have a long way to goin this country before any of ourteams are capable of doing that,but I’m only young and have therest of my life ahead of me.

In the near future, I would likeMiddlesbrough to be recognizedas a top 4 team in the country. Ithink we proved that at the playoffs but the task now is to dothat on a regular basis. UKFN: Has there been anychanges at Middlesbrough for2010?

DS: Matty Wootton, Nick Hamblin and Ryon Leyshon havemoved clubs, while David Herberthas left too. Four very experienced players, but as withlast season when we lost BenMortlock, Curtis Holmes, BenAmos and Richard Burgess, fourof the five who were the core ofthe team, we have to move on andthe players we have brought in areyoung, talented and live locally.This has been the aim since thestart of Middlesbrough, to haveyoung local players, so that we

can have a consistent team foryears to come.

UKFN: Will the loss of RyonLeyshon affect your chancesthis season?

DS: Losing Ryon will be likeMan United losing Ronaldo. Youcan’t replace him directly, but as ateam we can only grow. It willplace more emphasis on the teamas a whole. We played a fewgames without him last seasonand coped, but the loss of all fourplayers will certainly affect us.

We will miss his goals, his speedand his leadership, but we lost ourprevious captain Ben Mortlockand went on to win the league sowho knows?UKFN: Who are your tips forthe playoffs and relegation thisseason in the Northern conference?

DS: I think you have to look atSheffield who have two teamsworth of players from last season,and have added a few England

players, including Leyshon,Holmes and Mortlock – our threeformer club captains. They shouldbe getting into the playoffs andare my tips to win the league.Tranmere are strong, but unlessthey inject some youth and speedI think they will struggle againstsome teams in the North. Manchester are hit and miss, theyhave Nick Hamblin from us, andthey are our bogey team. I amsure they will be strong again, butuntil the season gets underway wewon’t know.

For relegation, I think Leeds willone of the favourites to finish bottom, but the two new teamsmight struggle to adapt and if theydo, one could be unfortunate to gostraight back down. I still thinkthat Liverpool and Oldham willbe strong enough and may evencause some upsets. Grimsby haveimproved and will be a threat atthe top, so sorry but I can’t seeanyone other than Leeds on thebottom and Sheffield, Tranmereand Manchester at the top.UKFN: Who do you think willwin the overall national play-off?

DS: Helvecia are very strong,but not unbeatable. I think theywill win it again, though WhiteBear and Genesis will have some-thing to say about that and who-ever goes through from the Northwill have a good shout given thestrength of the teams at the top.

UKFN: Do youhave any othertournament plansfor Middlesbroughoutside the leaguesystem?

DS: Yes, we willhave the Tees ValleyLeague in which ouryouth team will playand the North Riding

Cup will run again, which will beopened up to all teams so we havea cup competition to play in see-ing as the FA Futsal Cup isn’t onthis year. Fortunately the season is shorter and we shouldfind ourselves with games everyweekend until June.UKFN: Are there any other fut-sal projects you are working onat present?

DS: Yes there are. I’ve juststarted a new job at DarlingtonFootball Club so my time is lim-ited for futsal and League 2 is taking over my life but I am put-ting together a proposal for theboard here to introduce futsal inDarlington. Middlesbrough havealso just done a successful pilot inan FA Skills centre and in 2010,along with The FA Skills team wewill launch a futsal specific FASkills Centre in Middlesbrough.UKFN: Thank you for sharingyour time with UKFN and allthe best for the forthcomingseason.

INTERNATIONAL: Signs for United

Team United Birmingham’s ladies havemade a coup in the transfer market pick-ing up Republic of Ireland women’s foot-ball international Jemma Connor-Iommi.Jemma was invited to train with the squadafter impressing coach Ikhlaq Hussainwhilst playing against Team United. Hussain said: “Jemma has the ability tobecome a very good futsal player, her atti-tude and commitment is faultless. Some-thing that’s impressed me even more isher mental strength and energy levels.Jemma has the ability to play in any posi-tion on the court.”Connor-Iommi is relishing the futsal chal-lenge. She said: “The tempo in futsal isvery high, it keeps me on my toes con-stantly making decisions and playing inconfined spaces. It will definitely improvemy overall game and above all, I reallyenjoy the sessions and think it is greatfun.”

B’ham signing

Management and Sports Promotion, anItalian firm responsible for pushingthrough the transfer of Matthew Wootonfrom Middlesbrough to Club AS diCosenza, are offering open trials to play-ers interested in plying their trade in Italy. The trials will be taking place on Febru-ary 22-24, 2010.Coaches and players are welcome to askany questions about the trial days byemailing Paolo Barbarossa on [email protected].

Italian chancefor English


FA National LeagueFixtures: Week 1

Northern Conference

Home Team Away Team Venue K.O

FC Grimsby v Oldham Athletic Gemtec Arena 13.15

Manchester FC v Middlesbrough FC Sugden Sports Centre Manchester 13.15

Tranmere Victoria v Leeds FC Northgate Arena Leisure Centre 13.15

Sheffield FC v Liverpool FC Concord Sports Centre 15.15

MidlandsConference


Birmingham Tigers v Chippenham FC Midlands 14.00

Loughborough FC v Team United Midlands 14.00Birmingham FC

Stamford FC v Hereford FC Midlands 14.00

SouthernConference


FC Baltic v FC Enfield London 10.00

Kickers v Genesis London 10.00

London United v FC White Bear London 10.00

Vaughans v Helvecia London 10.00

Final league standings 2009

1 - Middlesbrough2 - Loughborough FC3 - Manchester4 - Sheffield & Hallamshire5 - Sheffield FC6 - FC Barsa7 - Grimsby

League Top Goalscorers 2009

1 - Mathew Payne 20(Grimsby / Middlesbrough)2 - Ryon Leyshon 19(Middlesbrough)3 - Joel Rocha 16(Loughborough)

Fair Play Discipline 2009

1 - FC Barsa6 Yellow2 - Middlesbrough10 Yellow3 - Grimsby12 Yellow4 - Sheffield & Hallam2 Red 8 Yellow

National Northern League Qualifier Playoff Results

October 31, 2009

York Uni 1-2 OldhamL’pool 4-0 East CoastYork Uni 3-0 Albert ParkOldham 2-0 East CoastL’pool 2-3 York UniOldham 5-2 Albert ParkEast Coast 0-2 York UniL’pool 6-2 Albert Park

L’pool 2-1 OldhamEast Coast 0-2 Albert Park

TablePts GD

Liverpool 9 +8Oldham 9 +5--------------------------------------York Uni 9 +4Albert Park 3 -8East Coast 0 -10


1 - Tranmere Victoria2 - Hartpury College3 - The New Saints4 - Team United Birmingham5 - Team Bath6 - Birmingham Tigers

Major Transfers 2010

Ben Mortlock & Curtis Holmes, Tranmere Victoria to Sheffield FCAnthony Lemoine, Armines Futsal Club(France) to Team United B’HamRyon Leyshon, Middlesbrough to Sheffield FCNick Hamblin, Middlesbrough to ManchesterDoug Reed, Manchester to LanzaroteCraig Hignett, Free to MiddlesbroughDaniel Buttle, Sheffield FC to Grimsby

Other Upcoming Fixtures

17th January 2010Birmingham Tigers vs. Hartpury FC 14:00Chippenham FC vs. Stamford FC 14:00Hereford FC vs. Team Utd B’ham 15:00

31st January 2010Birmingham Tigers vs. Loughborough 14:00Team Utd B’Ham vs. Stamford FC 14:00Hartpury FC vs. Chippenham FC 14:30Hereford FC vs. Team Bath 15:00


1 - Helvecia2 - Genesis3 - FC White Bear4 - London United5 - Kickers6 - FC Baltic7 - FC Enfield8 - Vaughans

League Top Goalscorers 2009

1 - Raoni Medina 24(Helvecia)2 - Nerijus 20Smatavicius (FC Baltic)3 - Israel Toko 18(Loughborough)

Fair Play Discipline 2009

1 -Vaughans7 Yellow2 - Genesis14 Yellow3 - London United15 Yellow4 - Kickers15 Yellow

Helvecia tighten strangleholdover the English game.

Helvecia Futsal Club made it backto back FA Futsal Cup wins backin July which concretes theirplace as the giants of English clubfutsal.

They also added to their impres-sive history the Southern leaguetitle which they narrowly missedout on in 2008 by five points to

White Bear and topped off theseason by winning the nationalleague playoff against TranmereVictoria.

The gauntlet has been laid downfor potential challengers to Helve-cia’s crown. Can any of England’snational league teams knock themoff their perch in 2010. Only timewill tell if one of the 24 compet-ing sides have what it takes to be-come national champions.

League data and statistics collected from http://fulltime.thefa.com/index.do?leagueid=788544. Results from today’s fixtures will feature in next week’s magazine.


England on Tour:Three lions defeat theAfrican ChampionsEngland’s futsal team travelled to Libya in early December 2009 and produced one of the finest performances the na-tional team had so far. Team goalkeeping coach, Tony Elliott, kept a diary of the team’s experiences on tour andnotes on how the squad performed in their two-game meeting with Libya which ended with an impressive 2-1 victory.

Day 1 – Wednesday 2nd De-cember 2009We held a brief team meetingin a very small room at thePark Inn where Pete gave thelads some information aboutwhat was to be expected froman England team travelling toLibya, not forgetting that thiswould be the first trip out ofthe country for a good few ofthe lads to represent Eng-land, and he also made themaware of one or two areas ofsensitivity regarding the wayof life in Libya itself - after all‘when in Rome’.

The players set off for theirbeds and the staff had a sitdown and a chat along with Simon Walker,Dave Henson and Brian Walden (membersof the FA small sided committee who weretravelling with us), after which we also got toour beds as we were all up at 5.15am to getover to the airport for our flight to Africa.

Day 2 – Thursday 3rd December 2009The flight again was uneventful, although

a little longer than the Manchester toHeathrow one, around about three and ahalf hours in fact! ‘Sergeant Major’ Leatherskept us in good spirits with his comic striphumour and Pete and I had a good chatabout a number of issues that we mightneed to sort out once we arrived.

Our arrival into Tripoli was strange to saythe least as once we had walked up the tun-nel from the plane to the arrival area wewere greeted by a large group of guys intrench coats, television cameras and a guywith a microphone and another fella whohanded Pete a huge bunch of flowers as away of saying hello and welcome to Libya!

Another guy immediately took all of ourpassports off us as we were all herded uptowards the passport control desks. Whilewe were waiting, Pete and our captain mar-vel, Luke Ballinger, both gave an interviewto Libyan television and we were beinglooked at rather strangely by the native’swho must of thought that we were royalty orsomething.

Food had been laid on for us as soon aswe arrived but we asked the lads not toeach too much as we were due to train twohours later.

From the outside the arena looked newand plush, it was only once we got insideand actually walked onto the court that wequickly realised that the court itself wasgoing to be a serious problem. The wholecourt was covered in a fine dust that hadobviously been blown into the hall through asmall hole that had been left open duringthe building process of this newish facility.

The only way to describe how it felt whenrunning on the court is to say that it was liketrying to run on an ice rink!

Before the session started we were wel-comed by the chairman of the Libyan FutsalAssociation, so we got to see how good ourinterpreter was going to be as the chairmanhad plenty to say and spent a long time talk-ing before he allowed our man to put whathe had said across in English.

We started the session and realisedstraight away that stopping and turning wasmore or less impossible and the more timewe spent on it the more we were concernedthat one of the lads was going to injurethemselves seriously because of this sur-face. I attempted to put the two keepers,Curtis Holmes and Dean Thornton, througha bit of a loosener and we also quickly knewthat it was going to be a very limited sessiondue to the state of the court. Pete and Iquickly decided to call an early end to thesession and then tried to explain to thearena staff that the floor would need to becleaned before an international futsal matchcould take place the following evening.

Day 3 – Friday 4th December 2009An early morning coffee for Mark and my-

self in the restaurant as we wait for the restof the staff and the players to arrive beforewe eat breakfast.

A team meeting wasn’t planned with theplayers but after a quick chat with the rest ofus, Pete decided to get the lads in a privateroom to discuss one or two things and toalso go over a little video footage of some ofour recent games before we head of to thearena for a very light training session inpreparation for the game tonight.

Pete and I discussed how we could possi-bly find a way to get some kind of edge overthe Libyans in terms of getting better gripand balance on the court during the gameincluding putting a wet towel next to thecourt to rub their feet on as this seemed to

give a bit more grip, wearingdifferent trainers – maybepimples – but the problemthere was that only some ofthe lads had that type of shoewith them. We even triedspraying some of MarkLeather’s bandage stickingspray on the soles of NickColley’s shoes to see if thatwould work, but after a fewseconds the effect wore off.Even after the floor had beenswept and cleaned the ladswere still struggling with theirbalance as even though thefloor had been cleaned, freshdust was obviously blowinginto the arena through the

hole in the arena roof. We got the lads back in the dressing room

and they started their pre-game routinesand Pete and myself did our usual pre-match talks with individuals and the groupas a whole. It was shortly before we wentout that Pete revealed his masterstroke –Honey!

He had grabbed a load of the little pots ofhoney that were on the breakfast tableevery morning and encouraged the lads tolayer the soles of their futsal shoes with thesticky stuff that we hoped would give themsome grip on the ice rink we were playingon.

As the lads left the dressing room andwalked out to the tunnel you could heartheir feet squelching on the floor as theystrode forward. Whether it would do the jobof keeping them steady on the court wouldremain to be seen but we all felt that it wasa psychological lift for all as we entered thelions den in Tripoli.

We went through the usual routine of na-tional anthems, hand shaking, exchangingof team pendants and then team photos be-fore the game got started and we could geton with what we were really here for.

We started very cautiously and backed off

Sunday, January 10, 2010 UK Futsal News Issue 1 -7-from the Libyans maybe showing them a

little too much respect, but this was proba-bly understandable as they are currentlyranked over fifty places higher than us. Aftera few minutes of getting used to the dodgysurface though the lads realised that theLibyans were having as much trouble withthe court as we were and in fact we wereprobably coping a little better and thisseemed to give us a lot more confidenceand we came more into the game.

Disappointingly the Libyans took the lead,somewhat against the run of play as we hadstarted to put some good passages of playtogether and had worked their keeper on anumber of occasions. It would turn out thatin both games their keeper would end upbeing the busier of the two in each game.The Libyans played a short corner and theball was fizzed across the face of goal to anunmarked player running in to tap into anempty net. Now we would discover whatthis squad of players was about and if theywere capable of coming back into a gamethat we had begun to dominate.

The rest of the first half was much of thesame, but whereas in the past we may havecapitulated after the first goal we becamestronger and more resolute and infact comethe half time whistle it was Eng-land who were doing the press-ing. Pete’s half time team talk ashe didn’t really need to say muchto the lads other than keep goingand with a bit of luck we wouldget the next goal and then whoknows what could happen fromthere. We got the lads geed upand sent them out positively tohave a right go in the secondhalf.

We started very brightly in thesecond half and Thomas Obasi,who was having a very goodgame, combined brilliantly withskipper Luke Ballinger for the lat-ter to smash the ball past theprone Libyan keeper who could do nothingabout this one and get us back into thegame. 1-1, game very much on!!!

We dominated the play for long periodsand you could see firstly the frustration, butsecondly, and probably more importantly thesurprise in the Libyan bench and their play-ers as to how this young England teamwere taking apart the African Futsal Cham-pions in their own back yard!

The Libyan keeper was time and againbought into action as the game came to aclose and by the final whistle we werehugely proud of what the lads had achievedand a massive roar went up from all of usas we ran around on the court hugging eachother after this very important result for theEngland team and English futsal in general.

Day 4 – Saturday 5th December 2009Before we travelled back to the arena for

game two we were all invited to a receptionin the hotel being held with the head of theLibyan futsal Association, their staff andtheir squad in a meeting room in the hotel.During the reception many thank yous weresaid and gifts exchanged and Dave Hensonand Simon Walker responded on behalf ofthe team and the FA itself and thanked theLibyans for the way they had taken care ofus during our stay.

It was then that the Libyans made theirbiggest mistake. In the first game the nightbefore, we played against the Libyansstrongest team apart from their captain Mo-hammed Omar (who had been votedAfrica’s player of the year and had beenchosen to play in a world futsal 5 teamagainst Brazil, in Brazil early in 2010), as hewas on holiday! They had arranged for himto travel back from wherever he was just toplay against us as they obviously didn’t likethe fact that they could only draw with us

the previous evening. We all looked at eachother with amusement as he was introducedas their great saviour and he went aroundthe room shaking hands with everyone be-fore sitting down opposite us as if to goadus and to say that now he was here therewas no chance of a repeat of last night. As Igot onto the coach I walked up to the backand asked the players if they needed anymotivation for tonight’s game and every oneof them to a man looked at me with a deter-mination that I had never seen in a team ofplayers before. Brilliant – the Libyans hadagain made Pete’s team talk so easy.

We followed the same routine as the nightbefore, even the honey, and were quicklyout of the starting blocks with great determi-nation. Thomas Obasi very quickly let theirgolden boy know what he was in for with avery strong challenge to knock the ball outof play that neither he nor his bench liked,but there was plenty more of that to comeas the game wore on. The Libyans startedbrightly though and they were a goal upafter 3 minutes due to some indecision fromgoalkeeper Dean Thornton who mis-read athrough ball to leave an empty net for a softgoal.

Nevertheless, the response from the lads

couldn’t have been better, as very much likethe night before we took the game to theLibyans and played some great stuff all overthe court. Both defensively and offensivelywe were very assured and showed greatdetermination to come back into the gameand dominated for long periods keepingtheir keeper very busy again. It was just acase of being patient and waiting for thatone chance to present itself. It was impor-tant that we didn’t concede a second goal,but on the bench we felt very confident inthe lads to keep it at 1-0. Rob Ursell andThomas Obasi were combining very well to-gether and created many chances for them-selves and others during a very dominantspell of play before half time.

Again, at half time there wasn’t much to besaid as apart from the goal we were the bet-ter team and we always looked like wecould knick a goal and get back into thegame.

At the start of the second half the Libyansplayed with a very high press and this wassomething that as a team we have tradition-ally struggled to play against. With greatthought and clever play, time and again wegot out of the high press and very quicklyturned defence into attack and troubled theLibyan defence into unforced errors.

Captain marvel - Luke Ballinger - capi-talised on a Libyan mistake to go throughon goal, with a smart finish to beat Libya’stalented goalkeeper. We were back in it andwhat character the lads had shown not onlyto be dominant but to score and now to looklike they could to go on and get a winner.The referees, who were very much lookingafter the home side, contrived to give somevery dodgy decisions against us and it wasonly a matter of time that we would giveaway a sixth team foul that would lead to a

penalty for the Libyans. After some delaythe Libyan golden boy,

Mohammed Omar, finally plucked up thecourage to place the ball and take thepenalty and after a huge run up he con-trived to hit the post and miss!That was it, we knew that we had to showthe ultimate in discipline with our defendingas we couldn’t afford to give them anotherchance from the penalty spot and we wentabout our business with great professional-ism.What happened next though was somethingthat none of us could ever have imagined –with five minutes to go there was a bit of amelee in the Libyan ‘D’ and Ben Mortlockstuck out a toe to divert the ball goalwardsand into the back of the Libyan net. 2-1 andabsolute ecstacy!Joy almost turned to despair as while Eng-land celebrated their lead, the Libyans tookadvantage to shoot at goal from the kick-off.Thornton was alive to the situation andtipped the ball over the bar.The lads defended with their lives as wewatched the clock tick down, it was thelongest five minutes ever for all of us. The Libyans threw everything at us andtime and again tried to draw the foul that

would give themanother chancefrom the penaltyspot but our boysstood firm andgave nothingaway and in theend had a coupleof great chancesto score againand finish theLibyans off forgood.Thornton, Mort-lock and Colleyall stretched toprevent Libyaequalising as

Omar began to exert his influence on thegame but eventually the final whistle blewand all hell broke loose as the staff ran onthe court to share this wonderful momentwith the lads. What a way to finish the trip,the year as we had all worked so hard dur-ing 2009 to progress with this squad and tryto make people realise that futsal in Eng-land is here and it’s here to stay. To come toLibyan and not just compete but to drawwith them and then beat them is a huge ac-complishment and I certainly think that thisgroup of lads should be recognised for whatthey have done for their country and for fut-sal in England.The atmosphere in the dressing room andin the coach on the way home was awe-some, to the point where even I got up andsang the Liverpool FC anthem, ‘ You’llNever Walk Alone’.The Libyans showed us great respect as weleft the arena and everyone of them shookour hands and wished us well.We got back to the hotel and had a quickbite to eat and the players then went to bedas we had a staff meeting in the loungedownstairs and got our heads together onwhat our strategy would now be moving into2010.


The steel city unitesBy Mark England-Woodcock

During the summer - Sheffield FC Futsalmerged with the Sheffield and HallamshireCounty FA team to create Sheffield FC Futsal inassociation with the Sheffield and HallamshireCounty FA.

The aim of this was to merge two alreadystrong National League teams to create oneSheffield team capable of compete at the verytop of futsal in this country.

Sheffield FC Futsal merged with the Sheffieldand Hallamshire County FA team to createSheffield FC Futsal in association with theSheffield and Hallamshire County FA.

The aim of this was to merge two already

strong National League teams to create oneSheffield team capable of qualifying for the UEFA Futsal Cup.To do this the club has to win the National PlayOff which is contested by the top two qualifyingteams from each of the North, Midlands andSouth qualifying leagues.

The association also provides a partnership forthe development of Futsal in Sheffield at all lev-els, which includes supporting the developmentof the Sheffield Hallam University Futsal Clubwho compete in the British Universities andColleges Futsal Competition.

The TeamThe current playing squad mainly comprises of

experienced English National League Futsal

players and international students who haveplayed futsal in their home countries.

The squad also includes 4 full England interna-tional players, Curtis Holmes, Ollie O’Neil, Ben Mort-lock and Ryon Leyshon.

Support Sheffield FC FutsalIf you are interested in watching Sheffield FC

Futsal in action then games are played at Con-cord Leisure Centre between January and June.

You can also follow our progress by joiningour group on Facebook Sheffield FC Futsal Facebook Group. If you would like to get in-volved in the club or would like to learn moreabout Sheffield FC by [email protected].

Coming up in the next issue of UKFN...- Match reports from all three tiers of the English futsal ladder in January.

- Another big interview- More UK futsal news

- Scores, scorers, stats and figures from all of the next month’s futsal fixturesand much more!

by David Smeathers

A transitional few months for fut-sal in Leeds will see a newname enter the fray when theyeventually get their season un-derway next week followingtoday’s late postponement. Leeds Futsal Club was formedin late 2009 after agreementswere made between FC Barsa,Leeds Met University and theUniversity of Leeds to contributeplayers and staff towards a newproject in the Yorkshire city. FC Barsa had competed for thepast two seasons at the national

league level but without a pitchto play on or the financial cloutto continue on its own, rein-forcements were drafted fromLeeds’ futsal talent pot. Former manager Kevin Barr hasstepped down from his role andpaved the way for former Brazil-lian professional Junior Robertito take the reins. Roberti has al-ready recruited several new, ex-perienced faces to the Leedssetup which include Alceu Col-larile, Daniel Migliozzi, GabrielRodrigues, JefersonDonasliemto-Migliozzi andRaphael Collarile. Together with the new coachingsetup and playing staff theLeeds side are confident theycan brush off the previousyears’ poor finishes and achievea playoff place in the 2010 com-petition. Leeds’ pre-season got underway competitively with a friendlywith Yorkshire rivals SheffieldFC who were boasting newsigning, England internationalBen Mortlock amongst theirsquad on the day. Playing a format of four, 12-

minute quarters, both sideswere able to experiment withdifferent playing styles and teamselections. It was Sheffield who made thebetter of the play, with Morlockpulling the strings at the back,Sheffield FC ran out comfort-able and deserved winners.There was some reprieve forLeeds however, with somepromising debuts from DanielMigliozzi and Raphael Collarile. Leeds’ second fixture saw themtravel to Bradford for a homefixture against East Coast Fut-sal Club. The Scarborough side had re-cently played against Liverpool,York, Albert Park and Oldhamfor a place in national northernconference and gave them an-other chance to pit their witsagainst another national leagueside. In a format similar to their previ-ous friendly, there were fourquarters, this time consisting of20 minutes each time. Roberti used this as an opportu-nity to test his strongest playerswho were to be available for the

now postponed fixture againstTranmere.The new look side waltzed intoa comfortable lead and scoredfour goals in the first two 20minute periods. At half-time Roberti was able toutilise his full squad and sentout an entirely new team for thesecond half. Despite dominating the gamefor long periods, the second halfperformance failed to yield asmany goals and the sides hadto settle for a goal a piece in thefinal 40 minutes. The final score was 9-2 toLeeds with JefersonDonasliemto-Migliozzi chippingin with a hat-trick to guide histeam to victory. The season may have been de-layed for the Leeds side butthey have shown plenty of char-acter in their two warm-up fix-tures to suggest they are morethan ready for a strong seasonin the national league. They face a stiff test in theiropening three fixtures as theywill face Middlesbrough,Sheffield and Manchester.

Leeds Futsal Club’s pre-season report

Game postponed: Leeds vs. Tranmere due to adverse weatherby David Smeathers

Leeds and Tranmere’s game, due to kick-offtoday, has been postponed as futsal be-comes the latest sport to be hit by the freez-ing weather. Club officials and player representativesmet to discuss the safety of travellingacross to Liverpool for the season’s openerand decided it was in the club’s best inter-

ests to call off the fixture for another date. The news means both sides will kick-off theseason with a one game advantage overthe rest of the sides in the league and gainan additional week to prepare for the sea-son. The decision means Leeds will now starttheir season against last season’s champi-ons Middlesbrough at Thornaby Pavillion onJanuary 17, 2010, getting under way at

14.00.Tranmere will face an away trip to GrimsbyFC at Hillsborough Leisure Centre with a13.15 kick-off. Stay tuned to @UKFN on twitter and ourfacebook page for more information aboutother cancellations as well as the latestscores and breaking news after the seasongets under way today from 13.15.

UK Futsal News: Issue 1

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Transcript of UK Futsal News: Issue 1