Imagine Your Goals Meets With Success

On June 4 2011, the Imagine Your Goals tournament took place, with 16 teams from different parts of England taking part.

Pompey legend Alan Knight was in attendance to launch the event, as part of his role as health ambassador for the club.

Sides representing both Everton and Arsenal were in attendance, alongside several Portsmouth teams and teams from Woking, Bristol, Crawley and Aylesbury.

The tournament was a great success, with teams competing over the four hours in seven-minute games. The groups were divided into two, with the top two teams going onto semi-final and final. 

The groups stages were a full of energy, promise and especially goals –  the first game finished 7-5.

With each team getting at least eight fixtures throughout the day, it was a tight schedule but the day went smoothly with games being played on all four pitches. And the referees did a fantastic job of running the league fixtures, which were managed and well controlled.

Once the fixtures had been completed, it was a nervous time for several teams, with group two looking very tight.

It went down to the last game to decide who was going through to the semi-final, with Kingsway (Portsmouth), Woking Minders and Crawley Town all looking to go through against the already qualified PSEF Disability Group, and Pompey Health group. Sadly it wasn’t to be a three-team Portsmouth semi-final, with Woking Minders and Crawley Town going through.

The semi-final saw PSEF Disability take on Woking Minders and Pompey Health go up against Crawley Town. Both semi-finals were hard fought with the Woking Minders making it through to the final first, waiting for the Crawley-Pompey game to finish.

Level pegging at the end meant a tense finish to the game, with both teams doing well but Pompey Health couldn’t match Crawley Town's level-headed penalties, resulting in a Crawley v Woking final.

These two teams had already met in the group a stage finishing as a 1-1 draw but Woking had the option of squad rotation as Crawley Town only had 5 players throughout the tournament.

The final was a hard fought game with Crawley scoring an early goal to take the lead.

The pressure was on Woking to fight back, and after having a lot of the early possession looked close to scoring several times, but Crawley managed to sneak another goal on the break before Woking could answer with the game finishing in a Crawley victory.

The match was played in extremely good spirits with all players enjoying it throughout, but congratulations had to be given to Crawley for their attitude in all their games and they thoroughly deserved the title.

Thanks to all the teams taking part, the coaches from PSEF that helped out on the day and also a massive thanks to Community Fusion, who provided some great volunteers who were helpful and also provided some very entertaining moments for all groups. 

Thanks also to "time to change" for providing the opportunities for people within the mental health services to access these programs, and a special thanks to the team at headspace, Catch and Leah for all their hard work, not just during the tournament day supporting everyone but also helping to make Imagine Your Goals possible in the Portsmouth area.

Click on the link below to see photos from the tournament.