Penalty shoot outs decided 5 a side Football Tournaments at the 16th Railsport Games held in Stanley park, Blackpool, on the 20th / 21st June 2009, while Rail Gourmet and Northern Rail’s Big Girls Blouses won Cricket and Rounders respectively for the third successive year.

The weather proved ideal this year, not too hot, a slight wind at times, but more importantly it stayed dry throughout the two days, although we did have a few spots of rain on the Sunday during the 5 a side Football quarter finals. 

Thirty two teams won through to the final day’s play of the 5 a-side Football which was held as a straight knockout.  In a dramatic penalty shoot out London Over Rail (LOROL) kept their nerve to win 16-15 against Network Rail Shrewsbury’s “The Untouchables” 16- 15.  Earlier in the semi Finals LOROL had defeated a good Unipart Rail (Virgin Prunes) team 2-1 and in the quarter finals beat London Midland (New Street Conductors) 3-2.  The Untouchables route to the final included a semi final win over First Rail Support 2-0, as well as wins over Eurostar FC 1-0 and Inter Lucchine (Manchester) 2-1.

In the over 35’s 5 a-side Football,  the British Transport Police team from Leeds “The Commissioners” beat Manchester’s “The Metrolinkers”  2-1 after the game went to extra time, then penalties.

Rail Gourmet’s dominance at 6-a-side Cricket continued with their third successive victory, defeating Railway Safety and Standards Board and Arriva Trains Wales in a final group of three teams.  Each team had qualified for the final by earlier winning through their qualifying group stage.  Scores in the final were:
Match 1: Rail Gourmet (57 for 1) beat Arriva Trains Wales (48 for 5).
Match 2: RSSB Stingers (48 for 1) beat Arriva Trains Wales (47 for 1).
Match 3: Rail Gourmet (73 for 1) beat RSSB Stingers (45 for 2).

Northern Rail’s “Big Girl’s Blouses” not only retained their Rounders title for the third online casinos australia successive year, but remained undefeated all day.  They comfortably won all of their group matches, before winning their semi final against Northern Rail’s Jelly Babies, then in the final they beat Virgin Trains (Virgin Stations) from Preston, Virgin Station had also finished runners up to Big Girls Blouses in 2008.

Six teams contested the Netball tournament with each team playing one another, the winners were Network Rail who remained undefeated all day, with Virgin Rail Preston (Virgin Stations) finishing second and Northern rail’s Northern Belles third.

Honours in Beach Volleyball went to Serco Rail Operation winning the Men’s and Women’s Pairs and the Open Fours.  First Great Western finished runners up.

The 10k Road race was won by pokies online australia Andrew Gardiner of Eurostar in 36m 48s, Steve Battle a Train Driver with GB Rail Freight was second and Edward Dunn of Network Rail (Leeds) third.  Rebecca Freeman of National Express East Coast was the first lady home.

Darts was introduced for the first time and held in the Progressive Sports and Social club in Blackpool.  Whilst the number of entries was low the event was a real success and the quality of darts high.  Eventual winners were:
Men’s Singles -  Conrado Gamban representing Network Rail Guide Bridge beat Michael Shaw Northern Rail in the final, with Ian Hurst of Unipart Rail, Crewe third.
Doubles – Michael Shaw / Sean Brady representing Northern Rail, runners up Derek and sally Ralston of Merseyrail.

Craig Harrap of Thales won the Badminton singles beating Lee Clayton of Amey in the final, while   australia pokies Duncan Fraser representing National Express East Coast won the badminton Veterans title, Stephen may of Kings Heath Traincare was runner-up.

In Table Tennis Ian Quinn of Vital Rail Solutions won the men’s singles with Reuben Okai of First Rail Capital Connect runner-up.  Reuben later  joined up with Keith le Milliere (BR retired) to win the men’s doubles, Roger Woolven-Allen (First Great Western) and Ian Quinn (vital Rail Solutions) were runners-up.  Alison Green and Darren Johnson of Southern won the Mixed Doubles.

Chess was held over both days and produced the most exciting finish ever.  After four rounds the top three players were tied on 3 points each, in the final round the two Network Rail joint leaders Graham Bolt and John Bass played out a draw, while Peter Eldridge 9South West Trains) scored a narrow victory over Nigel Holroyd (Thales) to take the individual Trophy.  Graham Bolt took second place on a tie break.  The team award was won by Network Rail – Graham Bolt, John Bass and Mike Broad.

Ten Pin Bowling was again held in Preston due there being no Bowling Centre in Blackpool. National Express Colchester (Ian Aldous, Ian McFarlane, Julia McFarlane and Phil Croyman) won the team title with 2054pts, a combined GNER / Scotrail/ Arriva Trains retired members team finished runners-up. Ian Aldous produced the highest individual series with a score of 560, while the overall highest game was 233 scored by John Pattinson of northern Rail.

John Hewitt (GNER retired) won the men’s singles with 588pts; Brian Thomas (DB Schenker) was second with 574pts and Phil Croyman (national Express) third with 540pts. Maggie Lucht (DB Schenker) took the Ladies s ingles with 518pts, while Virgin Rail’s husband and wife Dorothy and Laurie Garratt won the Mixed Doubles.  Val and Mick Eggleton (Balfour Beatty) were runners up.

The medallists in each event are shown in the Honours Board.

There are already some pictures from the Games in the Picture Gallery, and more will follow soon.  We hope you all enjoyed your weekend in Blackpool, and look forward to seeing you again next year.