VPSC Conquers Hong Kong! VPSC and VAFF spent the past two days exploring the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong. After the rigors of Taipei, Hong Kong weather was relatively mild, giving the teams the opportunity to shine. A round robin tournament was held at the Hong Kong Police Recreation Club, in the heart of Kowloon. Situated right in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in the World, this Club is a sporting oasis. Our hosts put on a fantastic day, with 6 games through the afternoon on a quality pitch. The Hong Kong Police Officers’ team (22 man squad!) was joined by the famous Hong Kong Celebrity All Stars team. Judging by the media scrum, copious hair product and gorgeous PR entourage, some of these guys are serious stars throughout Asia! VPSC honorary member, Alan Davidson, joined the team for the day, playing the games, joining us for dinner and coming along for the sightseeing the next day. VPSC kicked off with a draw against the All Stars team, with Ange taking the Good Will theme a little too far, scoring a belter of an own goal! Kain kept up the generous mood, squandering chance after chance before finally getting the angles off his shin correct and scoring the equalizer. The All Stars team were great and gracious sports, except for one assault on the back of Argyle’s (Adam) calves…..to put into perspective how out of order the tackle was, Peter ‘Hack’ Verechia hailed it as a “great tackle”! Our next two games were with the Hong Kong Police team(s), both ending in wins for VPSC. Kain maintained his deadly accuracy in front of goal, hitting the corner flag twice, de-railing a passing tram and nearly taking down an Airbus 767 with a ‘dipping’ shot! Naturally Coops gave Kain plenty of constructive encouragement, with subtle comments such as “How could you miss that?”, “You’ve got to put those away” and the ever popular, “I’m doing all this work to set you up – you’ve GOT to bury them!” In Kain’s defense, he took these comments on board and scored a brace in the last game, lifting his strike rate from 4% to 8.2%. The last game was punctuated with some creative ‘home team’ refereeing, especially from Assistant Referee 1, whose interpretation of the offside law was “near enough is good enough”. This lad’s parallax vision made Mr Magoo look like a 20/20 vision man and his flag was spring loaded. For goodness sake – he gave offside against Rick twice, and Rick was playing in goal!!! Amongst the carnage, a fantastic overhead goal from Andy was ruled offside, with Andy a full 5 metres in front of the last defender. As you might imagine, Andy took it very well, screaming in his Scottish brogue – “Nooooooooooooo, NEVER!!!” Needless to say, all was forgiven after the game. Hary from Refsworld donated some great refs gear and we presented these to the match officials – the linesman was given an extra gift – a pair of glasses! After much needed cold showers, The Hong Kong Police Recreation Club hosted a fantastic dinner for all teams, with a number of current and recent Executive Command members. Gifts were exchanged, toasts made, Ronnie got his top off (again) and the evening ended with the inevitable karaoke number from VPSC….”Well, she was just seventeen”! The following day was an explore Hong Kong opportunity, with Victoria Peak, Kowloon Park, Hong Kong Harbor Ferry, Carlton Ritz and plenty of shops visited by the teams. That night, the quiet return Ferry trip to Guangzhou was indicative of how hard we went over the two days. Back in the sumptuous Chateau Star River Hotel in Guangzhou and playing the Vancouver Chinese Soccer Association, all the way from Canada, today.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 05:14:50 +0000
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