POLICE_WORLD_2_2017

Article

IPA Poland Five-a-side

Football tournament in honour of Polish Police Officer – Andrzej STRUJ who was murdered in 2010. Travel plans for the UK’s team of 12 went a little better than last year, with the team travelling to Warsaw from Belfast, Liverpool and Stansted. This year’s only problem was that the ceremony had commenced a little bit earlier than planned, and before the group from Stansted arrived. This was not a problem as the rest of the team had arrived and marched in behind the Union Jack flag representing Section UK, followed by the rest of the team who had to sneak into the sports hall behind the others. W hat an attendance of teams, there were 65 teams participating this year. 50 Polish teams and 15 international teams. Seven of these were ladies teams taking part in their Unfortunately we were knocked out and could only watch the final play offs and finals the next day. Again it was a tremendous finals day which was won by Lodz Fire Service who beat Belarus 1 – 0.

tournament; maybe next year we could get a UK ladies team to take part. Four Sports centres were being used this year and our group was playing at the Arena Ursynow. Our group consisted of 4 Polish Police teams, 1 Polish armed forces team and 1 Moldovan Police team. The opening ceremony finished with 4 fully armed military abseilers coming from the roof beams carrying a large red box containing the prize trophy for the men’s football finalists. Section UK played 5 games and all teams had one bye due to one Polish Police team dropping out. At this point I have to say the team played extremely well throughout the tournament but we were just beaten by better teams. Game one we lost 2-0 to Dwodztwo Generalne Rodzaju Sil Zbrojnych Game two we lost 6-0 to Moldova Game three we lost 2-0 to Wyzsza Szkola Policji W Szczytnie Game four we lost 4-1 to Komenda Wojewodzka Policji W Poznaniu. The only goal scored by our team in the tournament was a cracking goal put in the back of the net by Tom Harper. Game five we lost 4-0 to Reprezentacja Komendanta Glownego Policji Game six was our claim to fame that we did not lose but got a bye.

It is nice to win but as one player from the tournament stated it’s the taking part that counts especially as this tournament is in memory of a murdered Police Officer. Thanks go out to Nottinghamshire IPA Branch for the donation used for gifts that were given to our opponents before each game, along with thanks to PSNI and Nottinghamshire Police for presentation badges and plaques. Andre Bak .

POLICE WORLD Vol 62 No. 2, 2017

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