Football: SFF Veteran Tournament-St Michel ‘oldies’ come out on top |19 July 2008

Six teams registered for the competition organised by the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) to encourage former players to get actively involved in the sport once again and also to promote the policy of bringing football to all age groups.
The tournament targeted players who are over 35 years old.

St Michel were drawn in Pool A alongside Mont Fleuri and Leopard, while Pool B featured English River, South FC and Mont Buxton.

After a 3-3 draw against Leopard in their first match, St Michel narrowly edged out Mont Fleuri 5-4 in their second encounter to clinch top spot in the group. Mont Fleuri were the group’s runners-up after they beat Leopard 2-1.

In Pool B, Mont Buxton surpassed all the others to top the group. In their first match they defeated English River 3-2 while in their second match they beat South FC 4-2.

A 4-0 victory over South FC enabled English River to finish as runners-up.
In the first semi-final, St Michel with Ralph ‘Tiapout’ Jean-Louis, Marcel Labiche, Senville Tirant, Roddy Victor, Charlie Hoareau and Alain Jean in the line-up demolished English River 10-1, while in the other semi-final Mont Buxton knocked out Mont Fleuri on a 2-1 score.

In the one-sided-final, St Michel thrashed Mont Buxton 10-1 to win the first ever veteran tournament run by the SFF.

According to organising committee member Damien Jean, the tournament was a success in all aspects. He said the players maintained a very good level of discipline and displayed an outstanding level of fair play.

He added that the SFF’s technical committee will carry out a postmortem on Sunday’s competition, after which they will consider setting up a national veterans league.