Bangkok Veterans League

Season #1, Month #1

— Inaugural Tournament —

27/Feb/2005 • Harrow School

Vets League gets its inaugural kickoff with NIST Teachers as first Champions

Report Date: 02/Mar/2005

I would like to thank all of you again for deciding to be part of the inaugural “Bangkok Veterans League” last weekend. It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon of football in the true spirit of the game. From the feedback I got during the ensuing “beer bash”, I heard all positive comments from the participating teams, so it’s obvious that the aging crowd of Bangkok is still has a craving for football (against, of course, their own peers!).

The pictures from the day for your personal archives (of glory!) are attached at the bottom of this page. Feel free to copy them as you wish.

The day developed and ended, in favour of NIST Teachers, who threw a spanner in German Allstars’s plans for the top silverware.

The following were certainly the clear highlights of the day:
■ performance of the ball-boys (noone could take a breather during the games.!)
■ presence of the jam-box (despite the cheesy “Michael Learns to Sing” CD!)
■ the new “yellow-card-sit-out-the-half” rule (there were no cards at all or late tackles!)
■ fair refereeing
■ the Harrow School venue
■ volume of beer (mostly due to the rapid disappearance of many from the British Club!)

I also got the following comments from different teams during the day, some of which will be implemented in future months, and some of which (marked with a “[*]” in the beginning) will be taken under advisement!:
■ don’t automatically seed German Allstars as team (A1)
■ have trash-bins available near the benches
■ allocate off the proceeds a healthy tip for the ball-boys
■ competitions every 6 to 8 weeks would be more appropriate (rather than every 4-5)
■ would also be Ok to have more than 4 teams to embrace other Vet teams
■ arrange the schedule/timing to also play the 3rd-4th place game
■ allow the Captains to give speeches as they take their trophies
■ [*] do not allow the last place team to give speech as they take their trophy!
■ [*] disallow goals that are scored from zero-degree angle!
■ [*] stringently verify the ages of all goalkeepers, regardless of the colour of their hair
■ talk to Casual League organizers to block off the Vets League weekends in their schedule next season

In line with one of the above suggestions, I am planning to invite the French Vets as well as one of the friendly Thai teams to BVL1 Month #2, which would allow us to run a 5 or 6 team event.

Also, in line with one of the above suggestions, we will change the date of BVL1 Month #2 from Apr/2nd to after Songkran on Apr/24th (Sun). This seems like the best date as it would be about 7 weeks apart, and the Casual League fixtures would also allow it (interestingly enough, in Casual League on Apr/23rd (Sat) would see games between British Club -vs- Vikings, and French -vs- Germans, with Dubliner having to play a Sunday game — hope Adrian could still put a squad together to defend the title).

Please let me know if there are other concerns about the Apr/24th date.

Please also do contact me back if there are other suggestions or ideas that could improve the event in future months. Looking forward to welcoming you back for the same kick-around on Apr/24th (Sunday) afternoon.

Thanks, once again, for supporting the “Vets” idea that was originally floated by Chris Jolly. Bruce and I hope we can sustain it going forward.

Kind regards,
-Eralp

Photos:

Picture 1 — Getting ready to kick the day off.

Picture 2 — German Allstars, under the leadership of Joerg, grouping for the pre-tournament pep-talk.

Picture 3 — German Allstars ready to win it all.

Picture 4 — Finalists, NIST Teachers and German Allstars, posing for a photo-op after their entertaining Grand Final.

Picture 5 — Beers all around!

Picture 6 — Ashley is reminiscing on the German Allstars’s narrowly lost championship.

Picture 7 — Matt is poised to drink the victory out of British Club's BadCup!

Picture 8 — Vikings’s Jesper is happy with their 3rd place finishing.

Picture 9 — A gracious looking Joerg receiving German Allstar’s 2nd place trophy graciously.

Picture 10 — Adrian receiving NIST Teachers’s championship trophy in the inaugural edition of the Bangkok Vets League.

Feedback:

From: Bruce
Team: German Allstars
Date: 28/Feb/2005

Thanks, EG, for all your hard work.

I think the best bit was completely unplanned ..... the ball boys.

According to Matt and Oliver they are thinking of doing this job at all tournaments. What an innovation.

Your booby trophy was excellent.

Bruce

From: Niclas
Team: Scandinavian Vikings
Date: 03/Mar/2005

Hi EG,

Vikings had a great day, thanks!

Cheers,
Nick

From: Adrian
Team: NIST Teachers
Date: 03/Mar/2005

Dear EG,

Thanks again for arranging so efficiently the Vets tournament last Sunday, we really enjoyed the afternoon.

Following on from some of the emails I have seen, I have to say that NIST Teachers would not wish to participate in a regular league, and prefers the idea of a couple of fun tournaments during the year. Although we won, you could probably tell that we were not that serious, and were really just enjoying ourselves as it provided the opportunity to get together as a team, meet some other 35+ footballers, and have a beer.

Hence, we look forward to participating in your next tournament, hopefully near the end of May.

Yours,
Adrian

Contacts:

Feel free to e-mail to me (contacts at the footer), if you would like to voice your take on the above event report, or have more photos from the event to be posted on this page.

27/Feb/2005 Results

Teams	Group Points	Final Standings

• NIST Teacher	8 (1A)	Champ!
• German Allstars	8 (2A)	2nd
• Scandinavian Vikings	5 (3A)	3rd
• British Club	0 (4A)	BadCup!

Legend: “(3B)” means finished 3rd in Group-B