he SBC staff football team recently achieved their best ever result, finishing 4th out of 24 teams in the Shanghai British Chamber of Commerce tournament. The tournament took place over 2 weekends, with the top teams from the first weekend qualifying for the second "Champions League" tournament this October.
The team made it through to the semi- final despite having probably the fewest staff members to pick from and being among the most ‘mature’ teams in the tournament. In fact, the squad was so short of players that 2 younger members of the SBC family helped to fill in key positions, future engineers Tugrul and Baines, who both gave man of the match performances.
Overall, it was inspiring to see everyone combining so well on a great family day out in the blazing sunshine. There were some particularly notable contributions from Economics teacher Hyacinthe Onillion, the only female player in the tournament, whilst Head of Maths Russell Pellegrini proved that Americans can play ‘soccer’, and we can forget Business teacher Ben Griffith’s goal from the halfway line! Last but not least was the winning penalty in the quarter-final shoot-out, calmly slotted in by the Head of the International Office, Chris Bayley.
The day was topped off by the team winning the Team Spirit award due to their fair play and positive attitude in sports and gender politics.
