Business Fives Edinburgh sees Fyte lift the trophy after a 22 team battle
Bumper turnout for Business Fives Edinburgh as 22 teams ‘Fyte’ for victory
Fyte won the right to call themselves the best team in Edinburgh after their performance at the Business Fives Edinburgh September tournament in the capital. Companies made their bid for 6 qualifying spots to advance to the National final of the business five-a-side tournament which will be back in Edinburgh on September 27th.
Off the pitch, Edinburgh firms displayed their charitable side by raising £2,860 for local charities. Avaloq received the trophy for top fundraisers as they raised £960 for Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity. Their efforts will be widely appreciated beyond the football pitch. Other worthy mentions were for Morrison Construction who raised £250 for Sands UK and Caesar & Howie who raised £635 for Age Scotland.
The players were treated to a post-match debrief and Q & A with former Hearts player and manager Gary Locke and former Hibs defender David Farrell who both shared their thoughts on the season ahead as well as funny memories from their playing careers which included playing alongside some true legends and gave an insight into how hard managing a football club really is.
Both Gary and David had the tough job picking a man of the match in the final and decided to award the trophy to the goalkeeper from Fyte, Josh Moreland, who made some crucial saves to secure the win for his team including 2 penalty saves, one in normal time and one in the sudden death penalty shootout.
After making it into the Champions League semi-finals they saw them up against AAB Goddard after a hard-fought match the game finished 0-0 with both teams able to break one another down. This left it to a penalty shootout to decide who would make it into the final and luckily for Fyte it was them. In the other semi-final debutants, Head Resourcing faced off against accounting software company Freeagent for a place in the final. It was Freeagent who were victorious in that bout as they squeezed out a 2-1 win. Despite losing their semi-finals both Head Resourcing and ABB Goddard will join Freeagent and Fyte in the national final.
The final kicked off and it was an extremely caged affair with both teams not giving much away. Freeagent took the lead after a fine finish from their striker, but then Fyte immediately hit back with an equaliser. Then the biggest drama of the final happened as Freeagent won a penalty with a minute to go but the effort was dramatically saved by Josh Moreland as he dove low to his right-hand side to keep the scores at 1-1 and take his side into a penalty shootout. Moreland then further cemented himself as the man of the match as he won the game for Fyte after his teammate had scored his effort and he once again saved Freeagent’s attempt.
The final 2 qualifying spot went to the winners and runners up of the Europa League with the final being contested between Wheatley Group and Farne Salmon & Trout after they beat BlackRock and Chiene + Tait respectively. Wheatley were the victors as they ran out 2-0 winners after some clinical finishing. Nevertheless, Farne will be pleased to have qualified to the National final.
The ladies player of the tournament went to Manson Architect’s Kaleena Hargreaves. Top goal scorer was Stuart Cooper from Anderson Anderson & Brown who scored 9 out of the 247 goals scored in the 74 matches played. Adding another Business Fives trophy to his personal collection after collecting man of the match in Aberdeen last year
The conclusion of the Edinburgh September event wraps up the Scottish qualifiers for the summer season with only the national final left where 27 teams will fight it out to be Scotland’s national five-a-side champions.
The action continues in England though on Tuesday, September 10th in Hull and moves onto events in Manchester and Birmingham before the English national final sees the culmination of the summer season on Friday 4th October in Leeds.
