ON THE weekend of May 20-22, Penarth Wanderers Vets FC travelled to Groningen in north east Holland to participate in the 14th annual Wim Bode International Veterans' Football tournament, this year hosted by FC Lewenborg.

This year's event had been expanded to 12 teams and Penarth found themselves competing in a six team group against teams from England, Belgium, Holland and Germany. Their first game, on the Friday evening, was against old adversaries Altius Hilversum (Holland).

Penarth immediately settled into a pacey, passing game and were able to play around the Altius defence with ease, quickly taking a 3-0 lead by half-time with goals from Scanlan, Tyler and Rahman. In the second half, with the game all but won, Penarth conceded a soft goal from a corner, but it was too little too late for Altius. Final score 3-1.

In the second game of the evening Penarth found themselves pitted against another old foe, SKV Overmere (Belgium), a team which had been a thorn in their side in previous tournaments.

This year was to be the exception with Penarth playing some of their best football ever and finishing victorious 2-0 with goals first from Attanasio and then Rahman again. With at least three games on the Saturday it was decided that maybe the team should have an early night, which they duly did at 2.30am.

The first game on Saturday was against Dulwich Blades (England), who Penarth had put to the sword in the final of 2013. In a typical British game Penarth dominated and Rahman scored for the third game giving them a 1-0 win. Now with nine points and two group games remaining things were interesting with their next game against TUS Hamburg (Germany) who were on seven points.

It was a game Penarth must not lose. It turned out to be an evenly matched game with both sides' defences, Penarth's marshalled by Averies along with Webber, McIntyre and Ato, cancelling each other out. This time Tyler, complete with broken nose, scored and the game finished 1-1.

The Wanderers had the competition in their own hands. They were top, however, the draw with Hamburg meant that they needed to get something out of their last group game against SC Terschelling (Holland).

The efforts of the previous four games were now telling with fatigue and injuries being a major influence on the game. Penarth dug deep and managed to see out a 0-0 draw, giving them a final tally of 11 points.

The last group game of all was TUS Hamburg against SKV Overmere. If Overmere won then they would pip Penarth to be group winners. This time the Germans did them a favour and beat them 2-0 meaning Penarth would contest the final against Real Srananng SV, the winners of the other group.

Real Srananng SV were a team made up from Surinam (previously Dutch Guiana) ex-pats living in Amsterdam. Surinam borders Brazil and Srananng's football bore similarities. They were quick in possession and comfortable on the ball, however, their defence was suspect.

Penarth were the oldest team in the tournament and, by now, running on fumes. The warm, humid conditions didn't help but as it was the final they gave it their all with every player running themselves ragged.

It seemed the longest 30 minutes and chances for both sides were hard to come by even with Penarth dominating possession again. With neither side making a breakthrough the match finished 0-0 meaning the hated penalty shoot-out.

All the teams who had finished their games, along with a good number of spectators gave preference to this final instead of the FA Cup final which had started. Painfully, it turned out to be a step too far and Penarth succumbed 4-3. It was generally accepted that Penarth had played the best football of the competition and, in normal time, were the only unbeaten team.

It just remained to receive their trophy and say their thanks and farewells to their footballing friends, old and new, before the long journey home the next day, but not before enjoying a night out on the town.

Thanks and well done should go to the Penarth squad of Paul Averies, Billy Nolan, Simon Davies, Keith McIntyre, Colin Dickens, Matt Attanasio, Antonio Cersosimo, Gareth Tyler, Alan Robinson, Mike Parkin, Dave Bridge, Mark Ato, Andy Webber, Gary Bloom, Darren Scanlan, Cem Aydin, Ronnie Rahman, Alun Huish and Ray Wills who will all be looking forward to next year's competition in Italy for the first time.