Grassroots football tours are special.
And right now, they’ve never been so special. After a couple of years in which all those things that we take for granted had been taken away from us. Competitive football, socialising, travel to pastures new. They’re all back! To have the opportunity to get back to normality and all that we love felt fantastic and we’d implore any team of mates to go and do the same. Our decision was to soak up some September sunshine and take on all comers at the Algarve Vets Tournament, organised brilliantly by ISL Tours.
ISL Tours have been arranging football tours and tournaments in the UK and abroad for over thirty years. The Algarve Tournament, in its twelfth year, is just one of many flagship events they organise, including the Jersey Veterans and the Amsterdam Easter Cup. For us, it was always going to be the Algarve. The men required some serious Vitamin D, and the glorious weather of Southern Portugal was able to provide just that. Perhaps too much, if anything, for a group of lads who’d made their bed in Vets Football.
We’ve formed a fantastically close-knit group and that bond has only been tightened by going on tour
Vets Football has seen an explosion in participation figures in the past few years and a huge rise in quality and professionalism. For us, it’s been a fantastic opportunity to get a group of players together that spent their all-ages careers at various levels of the game. Players that last played together at school, or had packed it in during their twenties. We’ve formed a fantastically close-knit group and that bond has been tightened by going on tour.
After the inevitable WhatsApp madness over flights, tests, restrictions and procedures to get off this bloody island, we were very much ready for action. Arrival at the AP Victoria Sports and Beach Hotel immediately quashed any plans of a quiet one before the gruelling all-day tournament. It’s a fantastic complex with everything a grassroots footballer needs to prepare the body and mind for matchday. Whether that’s the facilities (a gym, massage room, a 400m track, pool and table tennis tables), the local restaurants with fresh seafood or the perfectly positioned bar next to the pool. We opted for the latter and though it may have proven to be our undoing, that’s on us. We weren’t there for a long time, just a good one.
After hangovers had been dusted off, squabbles over last night’s dinner settled and everyone accounted for at breakfast, we set about trying to survive four eleven-a-side group games of twenty-five minutes in the glorious sunshine and just about held our own. Our tactics of going long, quite quickly, were more of a necessity than anything else and we managed to scrape our way through to a final: with eleven brave men still standing, we managed to take an excellent Shifnal Town side from Shropshire to penalties, where unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. Shifnal Town claimed their fourth title in a row, and hey, they probably deserved it. Presentations then commenced with pizzas and cold beers provided to celebrate not just a brilliantly organised tournament, but the fact that after such a tumultuous period, we were all back enjoying days like this. We regrouped, showered up and hit the Albufeira Old Town knowing that we couldn’t have given it any more.
With Sunday seeing the sevens tournament take place, our battle had already been fought and the day was our own. The area boasts a stunning red-cliffed beach, and with Vilamoura a fifteen-minute taxi ride away we chose to take advantage of both, hobbling round the best spots on the Marina and continuing our Algarve odyssey. We couldn’t have asked for a better trip and experience to dust off the difficulties of the past two years, both personally, and as a team. It cemented my opinion that there is no better feeling than being part of a team. Some like to just turn up on a weekend and head home, and that’s fine, but I truly believe that being part of a grassroots team that you love should improve your life and widen your social and support network, whatever level you play at. Tours bond you as a group.
The chatter and positivity since on Spond and on matchdays has been relentless, with the dominating topic being where we’ll go next. And for any team, their thoughts should be the same. Check out https://www.islfootballtours.co.uk/ and give them a shout – you won’t regret it.