Belgium bound!

We're off on our first European trip of the summer, playing in the Cyril Mangin 7-a-side tournament, in Brussels on Saturday; which is organised by the Union Saint Gilloise supporters'. We first met them in the RFC Liege 11-a-side tournament, back in May 2005.

Which was incidentally the very place where we first met Nicolas Lucas, who will be one of three Belgian 'guests' for us on Saturday. The others being his brother Francois, making his debut in the Pink 'n' Blue. And the top boy from UR Namur, namely Stephane Tournay, who played for us in Tallinn & Helsinki last summer.
(Where he tooks lots of photos, promised me a disc of them, But I'm still waiting a year later!)

The tournament starts with four groups of three, & then the knock out stages. We have been drawn with the fans of the home side, Union Bhoys, & an Italian side, Pergocrema, whose First Team play in Serie C1, based in the town of Crema. This is a small town in the north of Italy, just to the south of Milan.

Other teams represented are Cercle Bruggge; Metz B (supporters) & Cameroon (a team of locals, orginally from the west of Africa, but now from Brussels) in Group A.

We are in Group B.

Group C consists of Union 60 (another Union Saint Gilloise team); Excelsior Rotterdam; & RWD Molenbeek, an old club from Brussels.


The last group is FC Liege; FC Forest (who are a local non-league side, & the host club); & Metz A (made up of friends and family of Cyril)


So who was Cyril Mangin, in whose memory the tournament is held?


"Cyril Mangin 25.06.1984 - 17.07.2004

Cyril died from leukemia while playing at Union Saint-Gilloise, he had come the previous year - 2002-2003 season - joining us from FC Metz the French club where he grouw up ; at FC Metz he played since a very young age through all the youth teams and because of his quality he was captain under 15 under 17, reaching the youth french finals with Metz, and finally at 17 he was made captain of the FC Metz II ( french CFA - 4 national level) ; year later at 18 he signed for Union
beside hhe was a real "great" prospect ; he was a real charming person, and during his struggle against the illness he revealed his true spirit and hard character of "fighter", gaining much respect from all the unionistes."


It promises to be a great trip, & a good 'warm up' to our next one, to Helsinki, at the end of July!

Our playing squad for this weekend will hopefully be:

Phil Baker; Matt Hammond; Mark Hutton; Francois Lucas; Nicolas Lucas; Larry Marsh; Mishi Morath; Darren Nicolas; Mick O'Shaughnessy; Steve Rickerby; Stephane Tournay & Andy Tucker.