The tournament was hosted on April 2nd. Eight clubs put themselves forward to battle it out for the coveted award as Champions. Aurora, Bramalea, Downtown Toronto, London, Scarborough, St. Catherine’s, Waterloo and the hosts Windsor.

As hosts and also having never played any of these clubs we hadn’t a clue what level to expect. Most of the early activity down Ladbrokes was going on Bramalea, after the early rumors were squashed of The Cat, McArdle and John Rose making a come back. Everyone expected them to bring a strong team with size of the club they were representing. St. Catherine’s were also rumored to have a strong side and had been on a regimented fitness campaign run by Jimmy Osbourne and there hasn’t been one roll on sausage sold since the event was announced. But both Jimmy and Tommy Conlon must of peaked to soon, a problem their wife's are always complaining about, as neither made the trip down and were late call off’s, the pressure was obviously getting to some. Aurora was another rumored pre tournament favorite; I didn’t even know where the place was until they entered. D.T.Toronto were struggling a bit for numbers pre tournament and a broken ankle to coach Manny Sullivan in the run up to the tournament set them spinning down the odds in the early betting, Waterloo run by Stevie Donaghy were a dark horse coming in, nobody knew anything about them and Stevie was keeping his cards close to his chest. Scarborough was the only club I knew some of the players and word was filtering down about the talent they were recruiting for the event and were going to be an outfit to be matched. London were another Dark Horse who were struggling to meet the age limit and playing themselves down a bit, but we have all heard those stories, and Windsor as hosts were looking to put out good show of themselves gathering some of local clubs aging talent.

The agenda was to meet the ones coming down Friday night at the Kildare House (local Pub), 9pm to kick start the weekend. Gave everyone maps, directions I turn up to find one fella from Scarborough and then start getting calls from people from every corner of Windsor. Windsor is a pretty small city and built on grid, it’s pretty easy to get around. But somewhere down the 401 and quite a few drinks later, the plan went out the window for a lot of them. As the night wore on most finally managed to navigate there way to the Kildare. A crowd from Aurora and Scarborough came through the door like a tornado. Bouncing off the walls and soon introduced themselves to everyone. More began to trickle in from Downtown Toronto and Waterloo. Waterloo had decided after checking in downtown to go for something to eat, not knowing they had about 30 restaurants on the doorstep of their hotel, jumped into a cab, that drove them to the outskirts of town. I was getting some calls and rumors were filtering around that other members of the teams were already in Windsor and were secretly preparing for the games by talent spotting some of Windsor's finest downtown.

All the team representatives in the Kildare were showing extreme athletic stamina as the pints were flowing until closing time and the psychology and big talking about their teams was getting larger as the night wore on. Some not content with this warm up and looking for some final preparations for the coming games headed to the casino for a bit more training. The rest of us decided some sleep would be needed before tomorrow's events and was time for bed. Having all these bhoys together and well oiled, someone had to get cut off!! It just wouldn’t have been right without it. I wont name names, but Alan Lavery claims it was all a misunderstanding over chicken wings and "that barman's a fanny and there is a lot of others here should be cut off before me":):).

Game day: a few turned up looking like the event had come a little to early for them. First up was Bramalea v Scarborough. Bramalea came out flying and Scarborough were making good use of the buckets behind the goals, showing off some of Windsor late gourmet and as the games went on, quite a few more were joining in the exhibition.

The teams were split in two groups, Bramalea, Scarborough, Aurora, and Waterloo, playing each other in one group and Windsor, London, St. Catherine’s and Downtown Toronto in another. Games were all played competitively and in a great spirit. I would like to thank all the players for doing so, but hardly a surprise and only to be expected among this great Celtic community that has evolved within the Federation.

It Began to emerge that Waterloo were indeed dark horses and had a very good side, although no one could see Bramalea not being in the final, St. Catherine’s although a little short on numbers were also looking a good bet as tournament winners and definitely the team to beat out of their section. All the teams had a few handy players, young Brendan Docherty scored a packet for Windsor, London’s Sean McLaughlin could bang them in, Ian Geoghegan, Pat Brodie and Jordan Schwagger were all exceptional players for Bramalea, Scarborogh had John and Ronny McGarry amongst a few other looking good, Waterloo had Doug Oberholzer, Kevin O’Brien and Paul Mouridan scoring regular, aswell as Windsor's own Gary Berry standing on his head in goals filling in as a last minute replacement. Gareth O’Rielly from DT Toronto was also a hand full. These were just a few of the names that spring to mind, there were a lot more I didn’t get the names of.

Windsor kept up their reputation they are known for down here. Looking like they had never seen a ball before in the first ten minutes of each game. However Captain/organizer/beer fetcher Stephen McManus scored one the stunning goals of the tournament. From all of 36 inches he let an unstoppable shot go, nearly bursting the net, leaving the goalie helpless and sent the crowd roaring with applause. Well it’s not quite how I dreamt it the night before, but a goal nonetheless. But too little to late as Windsor never advanced and it was time to hit the showers and crack open the beer. St. Catherine’s and London advanced out of group two. The games in this group were all closely fought, but St. Catherine’s looked the best of the bunch and rightfully finished top of the group and booked their place in the semi’s against Waterloo as DT Toronto joined us on the sidelines.

In the other group Bramalea and Waterloo on the day looked a level above both Scarborough and Aurora and rightfully went through out of this group. Scarborough won the bragging rights for the bus journey back up the road on Sunday, beating Aurora in their final game.

The first semi between Bramalea and London was pretty one-way traffic. London were trying, but Bramalea looked to be moving into high gear and took care of London 6 - 0 and were definitely looking favorites to everyone. The other semi was a bit different. Waterloo v St. Catherine’s was an excellent game to watch and looked as if it could have gone either way with Waterloo coming out 4-3 winners.

The Bramalea v Waterloo final didn’t disappoint with some cracking football played by both teams. In the early part of the game Waterloo were playing it very tight and Bramalea were huffing and puffing but just couldn’t break Waterloo down. Finally Waterloo broke the deadlock, a bit of a mix up at the back for Bramalea and in steps Kevin O’Brien to knock home and put Waterloo ahead. Bramalea tried to step it up but some smart play from Waterloo and outstanding goalkeeping from Garry Berry was frustrating Bramalea and an incredible save in the last few minutes sunk the hearts of Bramalea and proved enough for Stevie Donaghy’s Waterloo Bhoys to finish 1-0 winners and Tournament Champions.

Afterwards it was back to the Players Club, home of the Windsor C.S.C. for a bite to eat, prize giving and a "Night at the Races". Learned a lesson here, just the logistics of moving out of town people from the arena, to their hotels, then getting them to the Players Club for dinner seemed to get lost in translation. But we got there in the end and a lesson learnt for 2006.

Pat Brodie of Bramalea was awarded the prize as top goal scorer with seven goals. Kevin Obrien of Waterloo was awarded the tournament MVP just shading a few other nominees’. Pat McNallis was the official score keeper for the day and he chose Kevin as the MVP after not only playing some great stuff all day, had an outstanding performance in the final. Although its was a close call between a number of players.

Then it was time for the horse racing. Things got a bit blurry for me from here on in, all the organizing and Guinness was taking it toll and maybe resulted in the fact I couldn’t pick a winner all night with the horses. I hope some of the rest of you were a bit luckier.

All in all a great experience, managed to put a few faces to names and meet a few new people. We are planning on including a football tournament as part of our 2006 plans for the convention. We are looking at a 3v3 outdoor tournament right downtown on Windsor’s riverfront, so I hope to see you all back and I am sure there will be a few other clubs wanting to join in and some will be looking for revenge from these results. Going by everyone’s response to the event, its definitely something we can keep going to get us all together over the winter and maybe grow to include more clubs and hopefully Windsor can now get an invite for a game and a weekend away.

The Club would like to specially thank all the Reps from each Club who organized their teams. I know from experience its always a pain organizing a team to take out of town and I think you all put a good showing of your clubs with the amount and players you brought with you and the way everyone handled themselves. I have to also thank all the Windsor Bhoys and Girls who helped out, you all know who you are and it couldn’t have been done without you. This took a bit of organizing for a small club like Windsor to pull this off. But as we work towards 2006 it definitely has been an eye opener and helped us a lot.

Hail Hail Stephen McManus (Windsor CSC President)