The Carrow Road Football Challenge is an annual event held by Lotus/Proton. Its somewhat like an event which is most highly anticipated by all Lotus/Proton staff here in Hethel. What made so many eager to play in CRFT is because the event is held in Carrow Road Football Stadium itself - yes! The Norwich City Football Club’s homeground! The Canaries downfall from the English Primier League aside; this turf is where great teams like Manchester United once fell to the underdog Canaries! Anyway, this tournament features a 6-a-side football with some slight changes to the normal full field rules. There are 16 teams all together, with 4 groups playing it out in league format. Then the best 2 teams from each group will make it through to the second stage where elimination will start to cut down the last 8 teams.
Team Stanley Accrington, which was the only team that consisted of Malaysian and English players.
My team : "The Stanley Accrington" has endured a lot of injury turmoil a couple of weeks before the event started. From a full squad of 9 players, we were thinned down to exactly 6. One had torn Archiles tendon, another with a dislocated shoulder and another was down with some kinda infection. Lucky for us, another 3 players made it through last minute via some friend’s recomendation. They are Rob, "Bullet" and Mike. All three of them are playing for some local football clubs, so we’re pretty much secured now.
Posing while in between games with fellow team mates, "Bullet" and Rob.
The event was held on Sunday, 14th May 2006. And our first game was against the FLUBS which are mainly chaps from the Buyers Dept. We were practically dominating since the start of the game, having numerous tries on target. However, Flubs goal keeper is a tough nut to crack. The turn of event came when our first substitute came on from bench. Zamir came in replacing Sean, only to be tackled by 2 advancing forwards, thus losing the ball. I stood there on the left flank helpless, as Rob sprinted back to help out the defence. A fruitless sliding tackle from Rob trying to save the situation, a dive from our goalie - and a goal for The Flubs.
Tussling for it! Jay up against a player from The Flubs. Game ended with FLubs winning.
Hard luck. Game ended with us losing 1-0.
Next up : FM United. Now… we needed to win this game badly in order to be able to stand a chance to make it through to the next round. After seeing the sub-par performance by FM United’s match against Dynamo Rapido (also same group as we are), we were all determined that Stanley Accrington would stand a very good chance at hammering this home. A couple of minutes into the match, Zamir made up for his fumble against Flubs by scoring a goal. And next, after a couple of misses, "Bullet" hit his first for the day. End of the game, Stanleys walked out 2-0 in the pocket.
Ouch! Zamir getting some medical attention for the injury he sustained.
At this point, we needed a bad win against Rapido, which was the last group match. If we would have won this, we walk into stage two - else, we pack our bags. Rapido is reputed to be the favourite in our group. They hammered The Flubs flat down with a 3-0 victory, thus we would not let them catch us with our pants down. Assigning Sean to man-mark Rapido’s advancing striker - Johnny was probably the best decision our team captain, Theng, made. We were virtually impenetratable… and our advancing forwards did what they do best - attacking!
However, Bullet fell with agony 5 minutes into the game. He twisted and busted his ankle real bad. And I mean - REAL BAD. Our playmaker and a goalscorer had to be stretched out… with the crowd applausing with support for him, for his sheer performance throughout the game. His brother, Rob had to accompany him to the hospital, thus leaving Stanley with a mere 7 players now. Whistle blew again to commence the game. As I was rushing down the left flank to an possible opening - it hit me. My hamsting pulled and I knew I had to go. Sigh!
This is where the pro English players will run out into the pitch. Jay and Zamir posing.
The rest of the game against Rapido saw me sitting by the bench with an ice pack. Felt helpless as Stanleys toiled against the advantageous Rapidos now. However, it was 0-0. This result wasnt good enough to secure our falling-apart team into the next round.
It was after all a very good day of football. A lost we faced, but it was a applausable lost.
The day ended with us taking some pictures here in Carrow Road Football Stadium to capture the moments which we had in such a grand pitch, which I personally could only have seen it via TV over English Primier League before I came over to Norwich. Now, I have played on it, and it will definitely leave a lasting memory.
