On Wednesday 15th September 2021, Team Westerby entered the Corporate Charity Football Fund Raising Event (chosen Charity was The Y) organised by Business Fives at Goals in Evington, Leicester. The Westerby Team comprised of Jinal Sachdev, Avesh Sachdev, Jordan Clark, Jake Clark, Suraj Odedra and Zachary Gallagher who were all raring to go as the event unravelled at 4 pm that afternoon.
The format comprised of four leagues of five teams, each team playing an 8 minute game against all the sides in their league. Westerby were drawn in Group C along with teams from HSBC, Geary’s Bakeries, Tetra Tech and Power Off. Westerby got off to the perfect start in their first game against Power off with a comfortable 3-0 victory before facing a tougher game vs HSBC which ended in a statement 1-1 draw. The third game vs Tetra tech was a tight affair with Westerby edging the game out with a 1-0 victory keeping up their unbeaten record. The final game in the Group saw Westerby come up against the unbeaten and eventual winners of the tournament Geary’s Bakeries in what was a battle to see who topped Group C. This was the toughest game Westerby faced but came through with flying colours with a 2-0 victory, with goals from Suraj and Jinal, resulting in Westerby topping Group C unbeaten with 10 points and going into the Champions League Quarter-Finals vs Anthony James. Below is the final league table for Group C:
| Group C | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | +/- | PTS | |
| 1 | Westerby | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | – | 1 | 6 | 10 |
| 2 | Geary’s Bakeries | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 8 | – | 2 | 6 | 9 |
| 3 | HSBC | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | – | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| 4 | Tetra Tech | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | – | 4 | -3 | 3 |
| 5 | Power Off | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | – | 13 | -13 | 0 |
Unfortunately, the dream to become Champions League Winners and to go through to the Regional Finals Tournament in Manchester next April 2022 was dealt a blow in the Quarter-final game when Team Westerby went a goal down straight from kick-off but a cracking goal by Jake saw Westerby equalise only to then lose the game 2-1 with what ended up to be literally the very last kick of the match against Anthony James.
Despite a valiant effort by Team Westerby, unfortunately, we fell short on this occasion but were proud to be the only team to beat the eventual winners of the tournament, Geary’s Bakeries. Onwards and upwards for the team as we hope to go again next March 2022 to see if we can go that two steps further towards the final of the Business Fives Tournament.
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- Westerby Team with Matt Elliott
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- The Westerby Team
