Wednesday the 9th of May saw the biggest IFA Cup so far. In previous years a single students vs. staff game was played – this year four mixed teams came up against each other in a round robin tournament. Teams representing Poland, England, the Netherlands and Ireland came up against each other in six matches. 

Take a look at a photo gallery of the day:

The Netherlands showed early steel by beating out the Irish team 5–2 – the Irish also suffering the additional loss of their goalkeeper to injury. 

Next, Poland showed their dominance over the experienced English side, with skipper Maciej Kielar leading an outfit that seemed to be more composed and well-rounded than any of the other teams on the day. They repeated the performance with a 5-1 victory over the Netherlands, giving them an almost unassailable lead.

In the fourth match, England narrowly beat out a suddenly much stronger looking Irish side 1-0, effectively making the Netherlands-England match a second place play-off. This was comfortably won by the Netherlands, who, besides flair on the field, seemed to have the strongest support base on the sidelines too. 

Ireland looked poised to surprise Poland in the last match of the day with a 2-2 half-time score, but Polish perseverance finally steered home a huge 8-2 victory for Poland. 

Winning all their games, Poland earned the maximum 6 points on the day - we congratulate the winners of the first official English Cup!

Full results: 

Match	Results
	Half-time	Full-time
The Netherlands vs. Ireland	(2 – 0)	5 – 2
England vs. Poland	(0 – 2)	1 – 3
The Netherlands vs. Poland	(1 – 3)	1 – 5
England vs. Ireland	(1 – 0)	1 – 0
The Netherlands vs. England	(0 – 0)	4 – 0
Ireland vs. Poland	(2 – 2)	2 – 8

 

The organisers would like to thank:

• Professor Jacek Witkoś and Ms. Monika Szajkowska for their support, especially donation of the trophy and prizes,
• Mr Piotr Borowski from MDK, Poznań, who is in charge of the pitch,
• Paul Newsham for providing the idea of expanding the IFA Cup into a tournament,
• Magda Murawska for additional help and suggestions
• Katarzyna Kopeć for taking photographs
• Tertius Kapp for organising the teams
  
• everyone who took part, especially referee Mateusz "Jaś" Klimek who presided over six back-to-back games, and our spirited cheerleaders, mostly from the Dutch studies group,
• Robert de Louw – for organising the tournament flawlessly.