When you think of 9 Group you may just think of phone lines, broadband and everything Telco, right? Well, that’s not all we’re good at! 9 Group have decided to flex their abilities on the pitch by joining a local football league.
This blog will give an overview of our success so far and keep you updated on any upcoming matches!
August 1st 2018
9 Group FC turned up to the Stopsley football arena looking vanquish a two game losing streak which could only be described as a blip of poor form. Two new players have joined the team since the last match; Riyaz ‘I’m not very good at football’ Bhaiyat and the Ryan Prygodzicz who’s recently joined the engineering department at 9. Skipper, Burn, also returned to the squad from a two week absence. This meant we had a 7 man squad with regulars Rymes Manko, Khaled Phillips, Paul O’Neill, and Filipe Alexandra also playing in both of the days encounters.
With the first two games against Upcoming FC who were sitting comfortably at the top of the league and with the reputation as the team to beat, the pressure was on. The first 15 minutes took a tumble with 9FC finding themselves 3 goals down despite the best efforts of Phillips in goal who made some outstanding saves early on.
Coach Manko led the halftime team-talk and 9 came out after the break as the better team, taking us in the lead at 6-5.
Unfortunately, Upcoming FC turned it on when they needed to and proved why there are top of the league table and scored 3 in the last moments, beating us 8-11 in the end.
The second team we played was another work team, future automation, who are an engineering company based in Bedfordshire. They were described by the team that had just beaten us as ‘Manchester City reserves’ – and so they proved to be. Jokes aside, 9 still put in a valiant performance, and the score does not reflect the true nature of the game however it ended up a very painful defeat. Goals from Alexandra and Bhaiyat were unfortunately not enough and a tired 9 suffered their biggest defeat of the season.
August 8th
9 Group FC faced newly relegated opponents for yesterday’s league encounter, however, despite the best efforts of the team the tightly fought game ended with 9 Group the wrong side of the scoreline for the fifth game running. With regulars Manko and Alexandre missing from the squad, 9 drafted in two Honorary 9 players to subsidise the squad.
9 were the better team in the first 20 minutes of each half but this wasn’t enough, unfortunately. The opponents bought 6 substitutes which they began using, this turned the tide of the game. 5-2 halftime.
15-8 was the final score with goals from Phillips, Bhaiyat, O’Neill, Prygodzicz and our honorary 9 players. A notable performance from Phillips who bagged himself a couple of great goals, and was the focal point of 9’s second-half fightback!
That leaves 9FC 4th in the table with 4 wins, 1 draw, 5 losses and 6 games left. Despite the loss, there are positives we have taken from yesterday’s game and we have vowed to come back stronger next week.