fishtank would like to thank the chaps from our sister company, Ashton Consulting, for stepping in and making up the fishtank team for this year's Bristol Media 5 a'side football tournament at Bristol's Clifton College. They did a fabulous job of bettering last year's wonderful performance, where we lost every game and only managed to score the one goal!

Any early optimism was soon deflated when our group was dubbed "group 6, group of death". A little extreme I hear you cry, but with 3 teams who progressed past the group stages last year, including the overall winners of the event, the tournament could not have got off to a more difficult start!

Our first game saw us line up against last years quarter finalists; a team who had just beaten Aardman, last year's winners. The game started at a frantic pace and the youth of the fishtank squad, plus some shrewd tactics from player manager Tom Selman, saw us through to a comfortable 3-1 victory.

Fresh off the back of a fantastic result in our opening game, the fishtank boys were refreshed and raring to go when the second fixture came around. Unfortunately complacency was going to be the order of the day as far as fishtank were concerned and we slumped to a 2-2 draw against a far inferior team.

Following one win and a draw, fishtank's next game, against the run away group leaders was always going to be a big task. The boys started well with Matt Thorne and Jonny Selman taking the game to the opposition, fishtank just edging the first half 3-2. The second half starts well for the boys in blue with Rupert Mcsheehy wrapping up the dangerous striker. A final score of 5-2 to fishtank gives a huge boost to morale and a win in the next game against bottom of the league Aardman will see us through to the quarters. "There was a great work ethic out there, the boys worked really hard for each other and it was great to see Aaron get the goal he deserved" said man of the match Harry Selman.

The final game started in the worst possible way with fishtank leaking two soft goals and goalkeeper Laurens Taylor working hard to keep a complacent looking fishtank in the game. fishtank made a couple of changes at half time and the balance did sway with 2 rapid fire goals coming our way. With the score poised at 2-2 heading into the final few minutes fishtank looked to have the game wrapped up only for the referee to deny a last minute, blatant penalty.

The draw kept fishtank unbeaten in the tournament but led to us falling just short of qualification. A valiant effort from the team and all bodes well for next year!

Report written by Tom Selman