On Saturday the 25th of March 2023, 10 members of the Burnley in the Community Veterans football team had an early start to make their way down to sunny Salford, for the Foundation 92 Veterans Tournament!
We caught up with Billy, one of our brilliant Veterans, who told us more about the tournament:
“On arrival Coach/Manager Malik and his brother had us do a quick-change parade into our kit and make our way down to the 5-a-side pitches where he had prepared a warm up for us all to enjoy.
Our first game was against Rochdale Veterans and like previous games we have had with Rochdale it was a hard battle but we were the first to open up the scoring 1-0. We worked hard throughout this match and were proud to bring the final score up to 5-2.
Our Second game was against Fylde Military Veterans and our third game was against Blackpool Veterans to which we won a brilliant 3-1.
Our fourth and final game before we found out which teams had made it into the semi-finals was against the host team, Salford Veterans, to which the final score was 2-0 to us!
After the games, all the teams came together to find out which four teams where in the semi-finals unfortunately the Host team Salford were knock out at this stage leaving the 1st Semi-final between Burnley vs Rochdale and the 2nd Semi-final between Fylde vs Blackpool.
With both semi-finals kicking off at the same time Malik told us all to concentrate on our positions and keep possession of the ball this game! In the final minutes of this game, we brought the final score to 4-1 with Burnley knocking out Rochdale from the competition putting Burnley vs Fylde in to the Final.
The final game Malik told us “It is all up to you now”! The scores were close but in the final minute of the game we slotted one into the back of the net bring the score to 3-2.
After a long day the Burnley veterans were crowned the winners of the tournament!”
We would like to say a huge congratulations to our Burnley Veterans Team for this fantastic achievement and an outstanding performance, you have done Burnley FC in the Community very proud!
If you would like more information on our Veterans Programmes, please email Daniella.Worth@burnleyfc.com
