Cardiff City Foundation Festival

Second Tournament of the season for Barry (the first one of the season for me). Held in Leckwith, Cardiff on Sunday 19th November 2023. There was lots of teams taking part, from all across south Wales. There was two categories (Premiership and Champions League), Barry has 2 teams ( A and B) which both entered the tournament, the A team in the Champions League and the B team in the Premiership.

In the Champions League side of the festival which is the A team and the team I play for, (so will have more coverage than the B team games) only had 3 teams - Newport Angles, Aberwysth Exiles and Barry Town. Each side played each other 2 times. Newport and Aberwysth kicked off the first game of the festival which ended 2-1 to Aberwysth Exlies. Barry were made to wait at least 30 minutes before they could show the rest of the teams what Barry are capable of. When the time came for Barry to step on the pitch, they did with a vengeance as to my knowledge the first tournament of the season didn't go as smoothly as Barry expected it to go. Barry played Newport Angels in there first game, the game was 7aside, Newport were playing back to back games. Barry were certainly up for this game as they smashed Newport 6-1, the conciliation goal for Newport was scored by number 8 with a long range left footed effort which took the Barry goal keeper off guard. The Barry coaches were very happy with how to that game ended (shout out to Dave and Taran). The next game Barry played was against Aberwysth Exlies. This game was played 6 aside as a Aberwysth player pulled out before the game with medical issues. As the main captain didn't start this game, yours truly took the armband and with the wind howling over the pitch, I took the decision of switching ends and playing with wind in the second half which almost worked. (I will get into why it didn't work fully shortly), this game was a tight game because each team had one less player than the previous game both teams played against Newport. Barry had lots of the ball but was very slow in moving it around the pitch, Aberwysth played the conditions with the wind behind them in the first half with long balls and long throw ins which sometimes worked. As the first half drew to a close the Barry coaching staff made some changes which changed the way Barry played as pace and creativity was brought onto the pitch in Ibby and Jason. As the half time whistle blew it was very tight in terms of scoreline. As the second half kicked off Barry were with the wind which help them as they love to play football, Barry were moving the ball around like prime Brazil which the Aberystwyth players couldn't keep up with it. As the clock ticked down towards the end of the game which around 1 minute to go. Aberystwyth had a corner, as the ball was passed into the box the red blew his whistle and gave a penalty!! This is where my football tactical knowledge almost worked with the conditions. As the ref pointed towards the spot i was in disbelief as he gave it against me for apparently holding the player in like a bear hug grip. The resulting penalty ended up in the back of the net to make it 2-2, which brought the game to a close with 1 point going to each team. Not a bad start to the tournament for Barry, 2 games played 1 win and 1 draw. After this Barry had a well deserved break to refresh there legs and watch the other games taking place on other pitches.

The next game Barry played was against Newport again. Barry won this game 1-0. If you were to ask the players they would probably say they were a bit tired after putting in lots of effort in the first two games they played. The fourth and final game Barry played was against (you guessed it correctly) Aberystwyth, Again Barry won this game 1-0. To bring an end to the tournament, overall the Barry coaches were very happy with the performances over the 4 games, with some room to improve on certain aspects during training (which takes place on Tuesday nights on the astroturf pitch at Jenner Park Stadium in Barry at 6pm).

The results of all of the games and league table in this group are below:

In the Premiership side of the festival the B team of Barry Town gave it there best shot but unfortunately ended up at the wrong end of the table, but big well done to them for showing up and competing in the tournament with a good number of goals scored (9).

Below are the results and league table of this group:

The winning squad of the champions league section below:

This is the first post of many (I'm hoping) published to the blog. I hope you have enjoyed reading it and feel inspired to take part in football with or without a disability, also feel free to give me any feedback or if you just have to have chat with me about the club, I am available on instagram, my page is @jj_deaffootballer.