We had the player of the year award which went to Seijin Thomas for his all round skill, commitment and team work.

Big congratulations to all the staff and team members who made the launch year for MBU a real adventure. They go into a new season this autumn with a level of trust, commitment, skill, and team spirit that will only result in them moving up the league table.

Pics below (sorry couldn’t get everyone’s) and a little video of Seijin’s player of the year speech.

(click on pic to double the size…if you want to check how handsome everyone is.)

Video insight: Seijin cracks a few…

As a team they even walked away with some league silver ware winning best sportsmanship of the year award. This is significant because part of the team’s mission statement involves team members being role models for other young people. Next season they’ve got their eye on a few other trophies.

MBU were able to field a strong starting XI, which included Will Aso who had travelled by bus all the way from Newcastle to be with the lads this Saturday morning. The trip was worth it, as Will broke the deadlock half-way through the first half scoring a header that was beautifully crossed in from a corner by Toby Suda. This opened the floodgates for MBU to score, something unthinkable earlier in the season: Seijin Thomas scored a cracker, running into the box from the right wing, perfectly timed to meet Toby’s cross, and thumping it into the top corner of the goal. Kyung then managed to get the ball into the back of the goalnet after the Swiss Cottage goalkeeper made a couple of athletic saves. Alex Shaw then put his name on the goalsheet volleying in a ball that had ricocheted off the crossbar after a Will Aso effort.

At half time, MBU were winning 4-0. Unsurprisingly, there was a jubilant feeling amongst the team.

Feet came back down to earth as Swiss Cottage Tuesday edged their way back into the game. Jude Greaves, who had otherwise performed valiantly in goal, dropped the ball and picked it up again as he was about to kick it out, resulting in an indirect free kick within the MBU pentalty area. Tuesday converted this into a goal, denying MBU a first clean sheet. Another goal was conceded before Sean Greaves muscled his way through the Tuesday defence and placed his shot into the bottom left of the goal. One more goal for Swiss Cottage resulted in a final score of 5-3. MBU reached their goal of 10 points for the season and finished with a 3-game unbeaten run (win, draw, win).

The transformation in fortunes reflects the effort – the literal blood, sweat and tears – that the MBU lads have put into this season. It takes time to build a football team, as MBU has discovered, but thankfully we were able to invest patiently into each other and the results are now clear to see. To expect MBU to succeed in their first season would have been hugely ambitious, and although MBU finished bottom of the league, the last few matches demonstrated how the team can play. It took the whole season for the team to gel, but now it has, and the future for MBU looks bright.

Bring on the 2010-11 season! We hope you’ll be there with us…

Basically, MBU has been going through a steep learning curve. There were some tough times, when things became so frustrating on the field, tempers flew off it and relationships within the team were strained. These, and other problems, were teething pains, predictable in the sense that this is our first season, a formation stage, and thankfully things are beginning to click into place.

With the exception of a solitary victory in a knock-out cup competition (against a team who are no longer participating in our league!) MBU has become familiar with defeat. The scorelines have been quite embarrassing at times, but frequently, and especially recently, the lads have felt that these scores were poor reflections of the large steps we’re taking forward in our improvement. Individuals are growing in their ability, there’s more fluidity in our game and the managerial style is gaining confidence.

We won our first league game just over a week ago, a 3-4 away victory with a late Toby Suda goal securing the victory. Wild scenes ensued as the touchline members of the team celebrated; the manager ran onto the field in jubilation, and although the referee reminded him to return off the pitch, the ref was rather sympathetic to our joy having refereed many of our defeats.

Below are pictures and a video (courtesy of Tadaharu Hashimoto and Chris Jubb respectively) of last Saturday’s game (a 6-0 loss, but there was some tasty football on show).

Expect more victories to come!

David Fortune on his debut in goal - he did a sterling job

I'm putting on Kyung's shin pads which were worn by Victor, because Mark is wearing my pads after forgetting his ones...

Half time team talk

At half time no one really knew what to say. The performance was bad, and we felt like crap. Steven tried to give us a talk to get our heads up but in that situation not much could change it. The second half was quite a massacre. We were fighting with each other, there was no teamwork. This resulted in one of the players storming off the field leaving the whole team in disarray. At the end of the game we managed to pull ourselves together a bit more and score a goal leaving the score line at 7-1 by full-time. Quite a thrashing. The end was really emotional for the team. Many people released a lot of inner frustrations and pains with some even saying they don’t want to play for this team any more. I felt this couldn’t be it, we’ve got to keep going.

There is a saying that when you hit rock bottom the only way is up. We could see the weakness in our team from the last game – we needed to become more of a “team”. So the Friday before the next game we had a movie night together in LG; 300 - oww yea. So Saturday 7^th November we had our first cup game against a team called SSS FC. That day the team felt so much more relaxed, as if we had nothing to lose. The game started and within a few minutes Toby scored the first goal. We had never been in the lead before. Suddenly the whole team got uplifted and was on fire. Everyone was playing with smiles on their faces as quickly the score line became 6-0.

Even we hadn’t been trashed this badly before. This was a better result than we could have hoped for. At half time instead of seeing downed faces, you saw a team of joy and energy. There was no need for a talk this time we just had to keep playing the way we were.

In the second half we became more complacent and so it wasn’t a massacre in the second half. The game ended with a score line of 8-3.VICTORY!! We had won our first game. Afterwards we all want to McDonald’s and had a nice victory meal. Through really fighting through we could finally achieve a great victory. Hopefully from here we can keep going up.

On a rainy Saturday morning, 24th October, MBU gathered at their home grounds in Catford for their third match of the league against Battersea Alexandra. Before kick off there was a chance for some practice. Steven, the team’s manager focused on getting some corner practice. We had some great shooting, and the defenders proved that they were a force to be reckoned with as well as Ollie Davies showing some talent in goal.

The match itself was a good challenge for MBU: Battersea Alexandra had proved themselves earlier in the league that they were a formidable team winning one of their matches 7-0. Going in with an aggressive 3:4:4 formation, we wanted to show them we meant business from the beginning. We had a one man advantage from kick off since they had a late team-mate. We used this to our advantage by keeping up the strong offensive and maintaining possession the majority of the time. A very near goal by Su-Yang Klotz got everyone on the edge of their metaphorical seats, however it landed just wide of the goal, sending off a sharp intake of breath all across the pitch. Although we managed several shots on target, they managed to sneak a run past our defenders and gained a one goal advantage. At this point their last man showed up, making their 11th man. The rest of the first half had some very good passing and control of the ball from both sides but neither was able to score.

An energetic half time talk from Steven, encouraged the team to communicate more, keep some width with the formation and get some shots in. ‘You’re too nice too take the shot’ He said, ‘For God’s sake get some glory’.

The second half presented us with many opportunities, we continued our persistent offensive and managed several shots, but no cigar. Then an injury: One of their players twisted his knee while running and remained unable to continue playing. ‘Surely’, we thought, ‘This will be the chance we need’. But in our eagerness to finally bag a goal, we left our defences sloppy and to our great frustration we fell another goal behind. Not giving up hope, we continued to push forward. Not long after, striker, Sean Greaves, managed to dodge through the competition and give the ball a convincing wallop towards the goal; the keeper got a finger on it and a rebound off the post gave another chance, and then another, finally the third shot followed up by Alex Shaw was cleared from the line by a quick manoeuvre from the other side’s defence.

After a long and exasperating match, we finally conceded a 2:0 defeat, but it was valuable experience for the still rather green footballers of MBU. ‘We learned a lot from it’ said midfielder Toby Suda. Overall, we certainly played some good football and with a little bit of luck, we could win a lot of the upcoming games we have left this season.

The lads had hoped to bounce back from defeat a fortnight ago to the league leaders, Oasis United, and were hoping that Crossworld, who were just a few places above MBU in the league table, would be easier opposition.

After a bright start, MBU found themselves 3-0 down, one of the goals coming from the penalty spot after Mark Hanna was judged to have handballed within the penalty area. Fortunes turned as a corner from Toby Suda arrived at Matthew Huish who, with the help of the home team defenders, bundled the ball over the keeper and into the back of the net for a goal back. Just before half-time, Seijin Thomas kept his cool after some beautiful dribbling to slot in a second goal.

In the second half, Mark Hanna was again harshly penalised for a handball which seemed to be outside the penalty area, but the referee (who was very balanced throughout the game) pointed to the spot. With the penalty converted, a few more goals were conceded, including an unfortunate own goal by Alex Fortune, who had otherwise defended valiantly in the rest of the game. Things were looking embarrassing at 7-2.

After a few substitutions, however, MBU sought to recover some pride. Crossworld were reduced to ten men after a defender used his arm to block a Sean Greaves strike on the goal-line. Toby Suda converted the penalty. Colin Brouard scored the final goal of the game after a period of fluid movement, celebrating his goal by revealing a T-shirt reading “I belong to Rev. Moon”. Seijin provided the assist.

While the team was understandably disappointed at the final whistle, there’s confidence in the capacity to improve. After sharpening basic skills and practicing tactics in the regular training sessions, MBU will continue to improve.

One year ago, Jenson Button had no driving future after his Honda team were quitting Formula One as a result of the global financial crisis. Despite the enormous setbacks, he has now won the Formula One Racing World Championship, with his Brawn team winning the constructor’s championship. The lesson here is that even with an impossible outlook, with enough faith, determination and some good fortune, victory is not impossible.

During the final training session, visitors to Hyde Park would have been greeted by the sight of ten young men running around the park led by the smaller, more feminine frame of Susie, the wife of team coach, Steven. While she was afraid that her pace wasn’t fast enough for the brothers, most of them struggled to keep up with her! After some fitness exercise and training drills, the squad played a small game until the light became too dim. The team then went to the holy ground to pray, offering the season to Heavenly Father and promising to bring victory on the field, as well as victory in attitude & heart.

On Saturday 3rd October, MBUFC played their first competitive match within the 11-a-side Weekend League Saturday AM Premier Division. The team they faced, who are currently 2nd in the league, was Oasis United.

In the dressing room before the match, team coach Steven delivered an inspiring speech, followed by a prayer from team captain Sean Greaves and 3 cheers of eog-mansei. While this all helped to establish a confident and excited mood, the team kept their feet on the ground in terms of expectations. This would be the team’s first trial, testing the standard of the league and giving MBU an impression of what to expect in the next 23 games of the league’s season.

The game was of fast pace throughout, so MBU had to adapt quickly and gel as a team. Simon Cooper received an early injury and had to be replaced by Takao Kobayashi. The defence held strongly for most of the half, but a well-worked goal and a lob that beat the keeper towards the end of the half meant that the half-time score was 0-2.

Despite holding heads high in preparation for a determined fight-back, the team suffered disaster when they conceded a goal early in the second half. Nevertheless, the team was playing more fluid football. The opposition strikers were struggling to beat the offside trap and the team was using Alex Shaw on the left wing, an area neglected during the first half. This paid off as Alex played his part, together with Toby Suda, in setting up Su-Yang Klotz for scoring a goal for MBU. After creating space for himself on the left and drawing the keeper off his line, Su-Yang executed a sublimely placed strike into the top right of the goal.
MBU maintained a high spirit. The referee appreciated this, penalising the opposition for their aggressive attitude. (It must be noted most of this aggression was directed at themselves!) A direct free kick was awarded to MBU right outside the opposition penalty area. Toby Suda struck to the right of the wall and scored again, leaving the score at 2-3.

Oasis United were rattled and held their lead nervously. Just before the final whistle, however, Oasis scored another lucky goal. The final score was 2-4.

Despite a loss on the day, the team felt victorious about their attitude during the game. Although there’s a lot of room for improvement, there were a lot of positives to take from the game and optimism that as the season progresses, the team will get better and better.

Special mention must go to Colin Brouard for his bravery in playing most of the match as goalkeeper, a position he never normally plays. While he was unlucky with a couple of fluky goals, he rose to the occasion by vociferously communicating with the defence and making some fine, finger-tip saves.

PLAYED: C. Brouard, T. Hashimoto, S. Cooper (T. Kobayashi, H. Song), M. Huish, A. Fortune, A. Shaw, S. Greaves, S. Klotz, D. Fortune (S. Song), T. Suda

GOALS: S. Klotz, T. Suda

He identified 3 key factors in common with all the people he studied. On reading over these it struck me how close they are to our own teaching. Here are my notes. Can you see the similarity?

1) Spiritual Element – They believed in a Subjective Loving Intelligence, whom they would be able to make contact with and surrender their condition to. My will Your will – matching consciousness.

2) Attitude – My Emotions did this (this may also include preventing the body from repair) Thinking Feeling, Feeling Thinking Cycle. We become addicted to emotional states.

3) And most important! I HAVE TO RE-INVENT MYSELF through Thinking and Questioning. (May also be through study and counseling! – my addition)

The method he proposes for the above is a form of meditation, which athletes use “mental rehearsal” I also call creative visualisation or guided visualisation which I use with some clients. If we see the outcome we want, the body and circumstances can then move us towards that outcome.

It actually works in a very practical way. Joe explains about how our thoughts and feelings have an effect on our body chemistry, which changes us in a very physical way.