Sir Robert McAlpine triumph in debut Newcastle Business Fives Event
The tournament for football loving firms kicked off the first of three events in the North East of England as the Newcastle Business Fives made its debut.
The first Newcastle Business Fives event served up a mouth-watering 141 goals scored in 38 matches between the 15 companies that took part.
The events have a strong charity focus with 10% of revenue going to charity which will be allocated to the overall winners chosen charity. Companies played for their own causes with the top fundraisers on the day being the two teams from RSM who combined to raise £570 for MIND which was a fantastic effort.
The Winter season has now raised over £11,800 thanks to the efforts of the Newcastle Business Fives teams taking it over the 5 figure mark for the fourth consecutive season running.
Ambassador, Malcolm ‘SuperMac’ MacDonald entertained the players after the tournament sharing stories from his career in the beautiful game as an England and Newcastle United legend.
On the pitch there was goals aplenty with Sir Robert McAlpine, Hedgehog Lab, Turnitin and NBS all topping their groups to reach the Champions League quarter final stage. They were joined by the best of the rest made up of NVM Private Equity, Direct Business Solutions, RSM and Lambert Smith Hampton.
It was Lambert Smith Hampton who upset the apple cart as the only team not to win their group to make it through to the Champions League Semi finals. Reaching the Newcastle Business Fives champions league semi-finals offered a route to the National final for four of the 5 qualifiers where they will go on to play for their charity of choice. Joining the team from Lambert Smith Hampton was Sir Robert McAlpine, Hedgehog Lab and NBS.
The semi finals were suitably tight encounters with Sir Robert McAlpine edging past NBS by scoring the only goal of the match. Hedgehog Lab and Lambert Smith Hampton played out a draw with the former holding their nerve to book their place in the final.
The Newcastle Business Fives final was a gripping encounter with Sir Robert McAlpine storming into a 3-2 lead courtesy of goals and a man of the match performance from Jake Maughan who was singled out by SuperMac for his standout performance. Hedgehog Lab did stage a fight back with Duncan Bell hitting the back of the net twice with two superb finished but it wasn’t enough to prevent his side from losing 4-2. Full highlights of that final are on our Facebook page here. The construction firm will go on to play for Maggie’s in the national final with Hedgehog Lab playing for the Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter.
In the Europa League section the semi-finals were played out between Utility Alliance and EY, with the accountancy firm losing out 4-1 against the Utility firm, meanwhile Metnor Construction got passed Patrick Parsons by 5 goals. This set up a thrilling encounter in the final that could have went either way and ended up a goalless draw. It was Utility Alliance who held their nerve thanks to some composed finishing from the spot to win the penalty shootout and lift the Europa League section title.
The events set off for Sunderland, and Tees Valley ahead of the national final in Edinburgh 22nd of March where teams will play park chance to win a slice of the business fives charity donation for their chosen charity causes.
