Playing in the inaugural Jake Knight Memorial at Rushall, the Coventry & District team came a creditable third from eight teams, tying with the Kicking Cancer team after playing out a 0-0 draw in the 3rd place play-off.
The event proved a great success raising £1000, including a £100 donation from our club, for a local heart/cardiac rehabilitation group, in honour of the late Jake Knight.
As it turned out Colin Farmer was unable to make the trip today due to sickness so Ken Badland stepped in to do the honours. True to his word, Ken played all 10 players in the squad throughout the tournament.
Eight teams were split into two groups of 4, drawn by lots at the start of the tournament. In their group Coventry first played Rushall Raiders winning 2-0 with goals from Guy Rawson and Dave Marriott. Some good play down the left wing saw Darren Thorn cut the ball back to Guy who hit a first time shot into the back of the net. Dave Marriott then scored the second goal after some good work by Lewis Gent down the right wing feeding a pass through players into Dave to score. Phil Hutchings and Tony Malone, who was captain for the day, kept Rushall at bay ensuring Garry Bench had very little to do.
In the second game Coventry faced Burntwood, which turned out to be a much more physical and fast game. Garry pulled off a couple of good saves, tipping one onto the bar and pushing another around the post, but he could do nothing to stop a fierce shot from a Burntwood player that also took a slight deflection on the way through. Try as they might, Coventry could not find the same rhythm that they had in the first game and were limited in what they could do with some good play from Burntwood. In the second game Ray Lewis came on for Lewis Gent.
Turning to the final group game, Coventry made some more changes, with Ken coming on for Guy, Bryce Taylor for Phil and Lewis for Ray. Coventry had most of rhe play and finally scored after a fierce shot from Ken was parried by the goal keeper onto Lewis who thumped it into the back of the net from an acute angle. Garry again didn’t have much to do, except for saving a well struck long range effort.
So Coventry finished second in their group and would play the second placed team from the other group. Burntwood who finished first played the first team in the other group, beating them 1-0 to win the tournament and the shield.
For a while, Coventry were unsure of who they would play, as the Kicking Cancer team had tied for second place in their group with Alvechurch. However, it turned out that with all other criteria being equal Kicking Cancer were eventually seeded second in their group based on a flip of a coin. In their team they had Colin Yates and Paul Feeney, who we all know as members of our club.
Going into the 3rd place play-off, Coventry started with the same 7 players as they had finished the last group game, then halfway through brought on Guy for Dave, Ray for Lewis, and Phil for Bryce. The game was a close fought affair with shots coming in from both sides. However, the game finised in a 0-0 draw.
All in all it was a great day, with all the teams playing their part to raise monies for a great cause. Thanks go to Colin for organising our team, Ken for managing the team and for playing on the day along with Garry Bench, Tony Malone, Phil Hutchings, Bryce Taylor, Lewis Gent, Darren Thorn, Dave Marriott, Guy Rawson and Ray Lewis.