Day 15 - Samba Carnival

Thursday evening saw the Table Football World Cup 2014 played to a conclusion.

A sell-out crowd comprising players and supporters from most of the businesses who had participated in the tournament was greeted into the Estadio Sao Paulo by 4 glamorous Brazillian dancers. Samba music played, Bean provided food and drink (including their fantastic chilli dogs!) and the crowd were treated to 8 fiercely competitive matches and an incredible 191 goal bonanza!

It was only fitting that the World Cup Final should be an all-South American affair, with the hosts Brazil (Hill Dickinson) taking on Chile (Ridge). Both sides had won 6 matches out of 6, so it was no surprise that the match was a very even contest, with little to choose between the two teams. Scores were level when the final whistle blew, but an explosive first period of extra time saw Brazil crowned champions. Everton and Scotland legend Graeme Sharp awarded medals to all the finalists and presented the World Cup trophy to the winning team.

The full results can be found on the 'Fixtures and results' page and a selection of photographs from the evening can be seen on the Hill Dickinson Flickr page, which can be found by clicking here.

At the end of the day, however, what really matters is that everyone has enjoyed themselves and hopefully made some useful new contacts along the way.

I should like to finish by saying thank you to those who helped to make TFWC2014 happen:

- PlaceEXPO for hosting, promoting and generally supporting the tournament;
- the Commercial District BID team for their support throughout the tournament and for providing much of the entertainment at the opening and closing events;
- Graeme Sharp (and Everton in the Community) for presenting the medals and trophy;
- Ray Farley, official photographer at the opening and closing events;
- Bean, for providing the catering at the World Cup Final event;
- the Marketing team at Hill Dickinson, particularly Martyn Smith for letting me spend some of his budget and Liam Russell who liaised with the competitors, refereed his share of matches, organised the medals and was of course the other half of the victorious Brazil team!;
- my 10 year old son Ciaran for creating this blog for me;
- and last, but not least, everyone who has played in, supported their colleagues in or refereed a match in TFWC2014.

See you in 2016 for the Table Football European Championships!

Thank you

Bill