It was an eventful, successful and very interesting season in many ways.
FC Británico de Madrid league team finished 5th. In the first part of the league, every club played each other once and then the top 6 played each other twice more. FC Británico de Madrid had finished the first part in the top 6 which meant they played Instalacion Pumo, Initec, Norgueras, Transportes Professionales and Portland again, all previous and recent league winners. The football played in this second part proved to be very competitive and FC Británico de Madrid more than held their own with victories against 3 of these teams and a couple of draws. Their draw against Instalacion prevented Pumo from winning the league for the second year in succession and allowed Initec to win the league on goal difference.
The friendly team, which from next season will officially become a second team in the Bunwer league, also played a lot of football. They played against some of the teams from last season´s mini league, visiting teams from England and some of the countries preparing for the Mundialito such as Angola, Paraguay, Uruguay and Nigeria. They won more than they lost and confidence was so high that after leading handsomely in one game, manager Paul Musgrave changed things round at half time and came up with the tantalisingly threatening central defensive partnership of Danny Topping, friendly team goalkeeper and Stuart Gibb veteran Britanico. Sadly this combination will not be seen again as Danny has accepted a better offer from Thailand.
Other football was also played and in October there was a 4 team tournament involving three FC Británico de Madrid teams and Richard Stuckes´company, Philips. Richard was leaving after a short spell in Madrid and made a generous contribution by sponsoring the tournament and a few beers after. Thanks Richard.
In November a very fiery 6 nations competition took place at Rivas involving, England, Scotland, Morocco, Spain, Bolivia and Rest of the World. Scotland proved to be the surprise of the tournament and under the cunning guidance of Alan Munro made the semi final. But again the Scots invented a new way to go out of a tournament, this time it was floodlight failure. Losing 2 – 0 to Morocco the Scots donated the game when with 10 minutes to game the lights went out on their chances of progressing to a final with England. And so the final was between Scotland´s auld enemy and an explosive Moroccan team. And what a final. With many English players at their very competitive best, in particular Chis Taylor, Paul Taylor, Paul Heal and Dave Hughes the outome was not decided till the final minute when Moroccan clinched victory 3-2.
For the first time ever the club organised an Inter Company Futbol Sala Competition where FC Británico de Madrid players joined up with their work colleagues and played each other. After a series of group matches, all teams entered the sudden death knock out stages till we had 2 teams which contested the final. In the final, Repsol led by Jamie Quin proved to have too much in their tank and ran out 4-0 winners against the Doctors from La Paz Hospital, captained throughout by the very popular Marco Bos. The whole event was accompanied by a raffle which raised valuable funds for the club. Prizes included air travel tickets from B.A.Systems and Real Madrid merchandise.
Marco Bos was also responsible for finding a new sponsor B.M.I during the season. After some lengthy discussions and e.mails the club received 2 new sets of strips. To celebrate the relationship with B.M.I a special game was organised at the headquarters of the Spanish Football Federation at Las Rozas. This was played on the grass pitch which Real Madrid regularly train on. After, the club presented their Annual Player of the Year Awards to Paul Taylor in the League Team and joint winners in the friendly team, Dave Pugh and Aaron Thomas.
The final action of the season saw the club take part in the Mundialito, a tournament organised in June and July by the Madrid Football Federation. FC Británico de Madrid represented Great Britain in the third edition for the immigrant population of Madrid. The majority of players from both FC Británico de Madrid teams played and gained valuable experience to come back next year with a serious chance of making a big impact on the tournament.
