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“When you look back, it was all about progression.. seeking that new challenge.”
We started as just a small group of school friends. Wherever we went, we’d always be able to manage a game of football somewhere or another.
If we weren’t playing for the school, we’d be playing on the tennis courts, squeezing in ’60 seconds’ in during break times, skipping lunch to play on the fields, using car parks to play ‘World Cup’.
Then came our first step of progression - We started to organise a time to meet up and play a good 2-3 hours of nothing but football. Our local park - Lampton Park, was the perfect place to play.
Open fields and short grass just put our ‘jumpers for goal posts’ and off we went - 5-a-side, 7-a-side, whatever the numbers; we always made the most of it.
After a while, we felt we could give more to the game.
Then came our second step of progression, we entered local ‘5-a-side’ tournaments. We went to the first one and saw all the teams with their new kits, new boots, subs, a bag of footballs - the works. Then there was us - in tracksuits, one football between us, and no subs.
Nevertheless, we didn’t fail to impress a few people, which allowed us to get some sponsorship from Uneek Freight Services. New kits came along with new footballs and ‘Uneek Dribblers’ were officially founded. The newfound attention attracted new players and before we knew it, we were on an even keel with other teams; new kits, new boots, footballs and the subs.
Now, one-day tournaments and a few games in the park just wasn’t enough.
Then came the third step of progression, we couldn’t have the new kits sitting in our cupboards gathering dust during the winter period. We decided to enter a ‘5-a-side’ league held at Powerleague, Slough. Gone were the ten minute matches played in the one day tournaments, in came the one hour matches on a weekly basis. We were put into Division 1, (with only The Premiership ahead of us), as that was the only available space due to a team cancelling. We met the challenge head on and surprised everyone, including ourselves, by winning the league undefeated. Into the premiership we went for the new season - We topped the premiership with only one loss !
By now, people were recognising us whichever national tournament we entered.
What do you do once you won the 5-a-side Premiership at your local Powerleague ?........You step up to the next level !
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