Written by Czeslaw Adamczyk
With the lacrosse season at an end, a group of keen players from the Croydon, Welwyn and Northampton squads could not pass by the opportunity to play some games against some European teams in a tournament being held in the town of Wroclaw in Poland. The event was to be held over 2 days - Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th May. Apart from the opportunity to travel, play some lacrosse and generally have a good week-end away, the prize was the Silesia Lacrosse Cup provided by Peter Munday, whose accolades include the Presidency of the European Lacrosse Federation, patronage of the Wroclaw club, Presidency of the Croydon Club and tireless promoter of the game around the world.
The tournament was to be played on the pitches of the “Pola Marsowe”, which means the Fields of Mars (who was the god of war) in the Olympic Stadium complex in Wroclaw. Whilst Poland has never hosted the Olympic Games, Wroclaw before the Second World War was the town of Breslau and was in Germany, which was the host country for the 1936 Olympic Games (the main site was Berlin, and I have been unable to establish if any events were held in Breslau).
Whilst the Olympic Stadium in Wroclaw has obviously seen better days, it still hosts Speedway and other sporting events. The complex also has a well used, refurbished swimming pool and a fitness centre and some track events were taking place during the same weekend as the lacrosse tournament.
Organising the tournament was in itself an achievement given that Lacrosse in Poland in recent times has only really started to be played in the last 2 to 3 years, and furthermore, there appear to only be 5 established lacrosse teams across the whole of Poland. Do not not take anything away from the Polish players however as they are VERY serious about their lacrosse. The organisers had put on a barbecue throughout the day, motivational music and good changing facilities. In the evening they made sure that the team were provided with a local guide (a team member from the local Wroclaw team) to help enjoy the numerous pubs/clubs and restaurants within the city (which the Croydon team made great use of each night!).
Six teams managed to make it to the tournament and all of them approached it full of enthusiasm. Three of the teams were from Poland - the local Wroclaw team named “Kosynierzy” who organised and hosted the event, a team called “Hussars” from the town of Poznan and a team named “Grom” from the capital city of Warsaw. The other teams were “Kromeriz” a team from the Czech Republic, the “Tricksters” from Bratislawa in Slovakia and last but not least the “Croydon” team.
Players from Croydon, Welwyn and Northampton had been organised into a joint team at short notice and, even though they could not field a full team with only a squad of 9 players, they were undaunted and confident that they would be able to supplement their team with players on loan from the other teams when those teams were not competing in a match (extra legs would definitely be needed with the matches lasting an hour each). Two teams (Croydon and Northampton) had played a friendly match against each other on the 8th May at Northampton, which was an opportunity to get a little training in before the tournament.
The English squad flew out from Stansted on Friday 14th in high spirits and confident that that they could give a good account of themselves in the Croydon colours. Croydon’s first game on Saturday was against “Kromeriz”, who very quickly scored the first goal of the tournament. Undaunted, Croydon went on to a convincing win 12-2. The match was scrappy, with very little settled play in attack. The goals came mainly from solo efforts and did not look pretty. The result showed that the team had good strong individual players, but more needed to be done in order to create team unity, settled play around goal and gel the team.
Croydon’s second game was against “Grom” (“Lightning”). Once again, Croydon won by a significant margin of 12-4. Unfortunately Vinny Cristiano pulled a hamstring during the match and had to be carried off the field and it was likely that he would not be taking any further part in the tournament. The game was a vast improvement on the first match. The midfield and attack seemed to link so much better, there was 2-3-1 attacks throughout the game and plenty of goals through settled play. Joe Nicoll summed up the game excellently saying “this is how lacrosse should be played boys, this is why I came over here to play and show the teams how good we are”.
Saturday had been the first rain free day for about 10 days. Sunday however saw the return of the rain and Croydon’s first game was against the local team of “Kosynierzy”. The opposition were proved as the best team in Poland with their results over other teams during the season and the tournament, so Croydon did not go into the match with complacency. Again, fantastic settled play, accurate checks and positioning in defence, hard rides and excellent face-offs saw a positive result was achieved again by the Croydon team with a 10-4 win. This gave Croydon a place in the final.
Going into the final Croydon were in a confident mood but knew that they would not have an easy game against the “Tricksters” who also won their games convincingly. There were rumours that a vast majority of their players were in the Slovakian national lacrosse team. Croydon’s concerns proved to be well founded when they quickly found themselves 4 goals down before they managed to get one back. By the end of the second quarter they were trailing 7-2 and by the end of the third quarter were trailing further 10-2. Croydon needed to pull something out of the hat and a rousing team talk (followed by some loud encouragement from their “UK supporter’s club”) was starting to have an effect, but still more was needed. The “Tricksters” appeared to have been unnerved by the way the Croydon the team had lifted their spirits and their game. Throughout the match, Croydon had been winning the ball nearly every time from the face off but the passing hadn’t always been clean, the finishing just wasn’t there and the defence had been unable to hold back the Trickster’s attacks. The rain made conditions difficult which may have had an impact on the nets. However, Croydon began to put a few plays together and started clawing their way back. With 8 minutes left to play the score stood at 10-6 when a “time out” was called and a further motivational team talk was had from the Team Captain Jon Bowles (“If Carlsberg did team talks”). 4 goals were needed before the final whistle and they needed to convince themselves that they could do it. As soon as play resumed the Croydon squad went for broke and played like men possessed. That final effort gave them one goal, then another in quick succession and a near miss. They were now firing on all cylinders and heading for what only a short while earlier had seemed impossible. Even though the Tricksters tried to slow the game right down whenever they got possession of the ball, Croydon kept on going right to the final whistle. In the end they had to settle for the runner up position with a respectable final score of 10-8, the time had unfortunately run out for Croydon. The general feeling at the end was that due to Croydon ending the match with such as strong 4th quarter (6 goals in 10 minutes), if there had been a few more minutes in the game the final result could have been very different.
Irrespective of how tense it got on the pitch, as always, after the final whistle both teams displayed their mutual appreciation for each others efforts with respectful chants, shook each other’s hands, team photos taken together and congratulated each other in the true spirit of sportsmanship.
After such a gruelling schedule, the Croydon squad enjoyed a well deserved night out on the town into the early hours.
To sum up the Silesia tournament there were of course a few teething problems seeing as it was the first of its kind in the country (e.g. Refereeing). However, the home team Wroclaw were very accommodating; going out of their way to make sure each team enjoyed their time in Poland. The costs were very low (including flight, accommodation for 3 nights in a plush hostel, entry into the tournament, transfers, food and drink = £250) and the city was packed with places of interest and had a variety of things to do at night (Pubs, clubs, bars etc). By the end of the long weekend away the general consensus was that we would definitely go again and would recommend it to others who were thinking of branching out from the usual Berlin/Prague/Amsterdam etc.
Croydon play their home matches in Chislehurst, Kent. We are always on the lookout for new players. Please e-mail Dave Arnot (Team Captain) to register your interest djarnot@crowncosts.co.uk.
Croydon Team for Silesia Tournament:
Dan Reid (Welwyn) Attack/Midfield
Anthony Peregrine (Northampton Town) Attack/Midfield
Tom Melvin (Northampton Town) Attack/Midfield
Tom Checkley (Northampton Town) Attack/Midfield
Jon Bowles (Croydon) Defence/Midfield/Face Off
Vincenzo Cristiano (Croydon) Goalkeeper/Defence
Robert Locke (Croydon) Defence
Dominic Adamczyk (Croydon) Attack/Midfield
Joe Nicolls (Croydon) Defence/Midfield/Face Off
Czeslaw Adamczyk (Croydon) Supporter/Waterboy
