Carbon team picks up trophy at Business Fives

On Friday 23^rd February, we entered a team into the Winter Business Fives football tournament. Business Fives run sports tournaments throughout the UK with the participating teams raising money for a variety of charities.

Carbon’s team, made up of Liam Kerr, Darren Lees, Finlay Wilson, Darren McMillan, Connor Llewyn, Ryan Doran and Michael Wilson, were playing for our chosen charity, The Ray Fernie Foundation.

The Ray Fernie Foundation was founded in 2019 by the Fernie family to continue Raymond’s legacy and vision by supporting young people in Scotland as they move from secondary school education into work, apprenticeships and further study. The Foundation provides practical and financial support, removing barriers to enable and encourage young people to reach their full potential.

On the day, we played some great football and qualified for the Champions League knock out stage, following a second-place finish in our group. We came up against FreeAgent in the last 16 round tie, with a closely contested game ending with the Carbon team on the wrong end of a 3-2 scoreline. That didn’t knock our spirits though, as we were then placed in the quarter finals of the Europa Conference League section. We romped through the quarter and semi-final games scoring 12 goals and only conceding 2! We entered the final full of confidence where we came up against Shepherd and Wedderburn. We were delighted to finish up 3-1 winners and bag ourselves the Europa Conference League winner’s trophy!

It felt great to finally win a competition after years of entering a team at the Business Fives tournaments. Special mention goes to Carbon’s latest recruit Connor Llewellyn who was Carbon’s player of the tournament, and to Darren Lees, Carbon’s top goal scorer who bagged himself an impressive 15 goals. All in all, everyone played their part, and it was excellent to see such great team camaraderie. The event raised over £3,000 in total for charities and as a result of winning the Europa Conference League, we were delighted to secure an extra £100 funding towards The Ray Fernie Foundation.

Winning this competition meant we qualified for the Business Fives National Finals in Glasgow on 18^th April, where we will come up against the best teams in Scotland. We will let you know how we fare in the finals in due course!