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Johnston Press hosts five-a-side football tournament

Regional publisher Johnston Press held a five-a-side football tournament involving 11 staff teams from across the group.

The event, staged in Leicester, saw teams from Northern Ireland, the North West, Sunderland, Sheffield, Leeds, Peterborough and London take part.

A team of journalists from the Lancaster Guardian and Lancashire Evening Post competing under the name Boca Seniors managed to reach the final.

But there they suffered an agonising defeat on penalties to the Digital First team, who won the shootout 2-1 after a goalless draw with Colin Bowden and Jonathan Stead scored the penalties.

The event took place at the Goals Soccer Centre in Leicester where the assistant general manager said it was the best behaved corporate event he had seen.

Colin Bowden, head of digitally led sales, who organised the event with group research manager Graham Russell, said the tournament was the first of what he hopes will be an annual event.

“As you can imagine, competition was pretty fierce between teams. There was absolutely no love lost on the pitch and while Digital were victorious, the Boca Seniors certainly gave them a good run for their money,” he said.

“If there are other publishing groups who fancy an inter-industry tournament Johnston Press would be happy to rise to the challenge,” added Colin.

6 comments

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  • September 17, 2013 at 11:10 am
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    Best behaved corporate event he had seen?

    Blimey journalism really has changed.

    It wouldn’t be right to have a meeting of egotistical journalists without some kind of fracas

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  • September 17, 2013 at 11:15 am
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    surprised they can find enough staff to make up five-a-side teams these days

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  • September 17, 2013 at 12:59 pm
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    Best behaved? I hope those journo teams take a long hard look at themselves. They have let their papers down, themselves down and most of all, they have let journalism down. Here speaks a survivor from the Blockies vs Year students, Harlow Tech 1970. Two taken to hospital. Graham, have a word.

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  • September 17, 2013 at 1:19 pm
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    LOL!

    Thank you Barry. You’ve just helped me to win the office sweepstake on when some dinosaur would pop its head up and say: ‘surprised they can find enough staff to make up five-a-side teams these days’.

    Beers on Barry.

    Cheeyurz!

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  • September 18, 2013 at 9:07 am
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    Digital First beat a team of old school hacks? Well there’s a subtle metaphor if ever I saw one…

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  • October 8, 2013 at 12:04 pm
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    As a spectator at this event I was particularly impressed with the Boca Seniors Number 7. He scored a few and even got a red card which was nice to see!

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