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When Brewer Morris held its second annual charity football tournament, Taxation again sponsored the trophy
To the victor belong the spoils – the same ones as last year.
In the end, 2008’s winners of the Brewer Morris five-a-side football tournament were certain to retain the Taxation cup: both teams in this month’s ‘09 final were from the company HW Fisher, which 12 months previously had hammered drinks giant Diageo 5-0 to lift the trophy.
The maker of Guinness this year fielded a brace of sides – but for nought. Not even the captain’s trash-talk could spur his squad past the quarter-finals of the cup tournament or the semis of the plate competition for the also-rans.
‘If you’re wearing orange, you’re in trouble,’ Diageo transfer pricing expert Matt Whipp had growled in a reference to HW Fisher’s brightly coloured strip. He clearly hadn’t noticed that the side from Stephenson Harwood was also in orange.
Was the debutant team concerned that it might get accidentally caught in the crossfire between a booze maker and a taxation technology company? ‘We can handle it,’ boasted the plucky players.
The lads of HW Fisher were equally nonplussed by whatever threats were directed their way. ‘We’ll do our talking on the pitch,’ said tax manager Andy Levett of the firm’s first side. ‘Let ‘em talk; let ‘em waste all their energy.’
The story of the day was not, however, just one of winners and losers, but also of men and women. Among the 15 teams present, only three players were female – all making first appearances at the Brewer Morris tournament, which raised around £2,000 for the children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent.
Liz Rushton and Sarah Gain were both appearing for BDO Stoy Hayward. Sarah had played organised soccer as a youngster and had previously entered her firm’s own annual five-a-side tournament.
‘We’d been expecting a few more girls here,’ she said by way of explanation why she and Liz were taking it in turns to venture on to the all-weather pitches of the Powerleague venue in Hackney, London.
Both BDO ladies were wary of the larger, more powerful male players on the opposition sides, but they weren’t afraid. Amid the controlled aggression, sweat and spicy language of the enclosed playing areas, there was a chivalry of sorts: the fellas weren’t putting the boot into the lasses. ‘They’ll slam a guy into a wall, but they won’t slam a girl,’ noted Liz.
The games – divided into a group stage, eight quarter-finals, four semis and two finals – were often physical affairs, despite sliding tackles being outlawed. Most firms, such as KPMG, had arrived with enough members to enjoy the luxury of substitutes in case of tiredness or physical damage.
But not Bourne Business Consulting, which blamed the summer holidays for the lack of depth in its squad. ‘We don’t want to think about injuries,’ said the quintet of players. Did they fancy their chances? ‘Not really.’
In the end, though, the boys in pale green excelled, reaching the final of the plate competition. But there was no Bourne supremacy as they lost 2-1 over a tight ten minutes against BDO, blaming fatigue for their capitulation to a side featuring two ladies – although neither Liz nor Sarah was on the field of play when the full-time whistle blew.
The other squad with a woman’s touch fared less well: Taylor Wessing was knocked out in the quarter-finals of the plate contest. Earlier in the day, tax trainee Panvi Shah, another tournament debutant, had been quietly optimistic about her company’s chances (‘We’ll do all right’) but self-effacing about her own abilities.
Despite being involved with Taylor Wessing’s ladies soccer team, she plays ‘not very well’, she said, adding that she was trying to exploit the men’s gentlemanly reticence to get physical, but ‘I’m not actually good enough to do it’.
If there was skill to be seen at Powerleague that August afternoon, it was mainly in the feet of the HW Fisher crew. That the company’s two sides came to face each other in the cup final was no great surprise to anyone.
The boys were taking the tournament seriously – as was suggested by their high fitness level, serious-minded attitude, and the good quality of their kit, which included a jacket for their coach emblazoned with the legend, ‘Gaffer’.
For much of the final’s first five minutes, the ten men went easy on each other, making for an unexciting contest. But then the superior ability of the HW Fisher first team began to show, and two well-crafted goals established a strong lead at half-time.
The second-string side attempted to rally after the restart, but their opposing colleagues were too strong – although the ball only hit the back of the onion bag one more time, bringing the final score to 3-0.
Mike Block, HW Fisher VAT adviser and captain of the winning team, was magnanimous in victory, praising the standard of play throughout the afternoon’s matches.
‘That was harder than last year,’ he said. ‘The quarter, the semi and the final were all tougher games than any we played [in 2008]. There’s been a definite improvement in standard, and we had to play well to win it.’
