THE Northern Ireland Veterans Soccer team will make their debut in the international Old Boys Lava Cup in Scotland on Friday with teams coming from Iceland and Britain in support of Scotland’s cerebral palsy football team.
The 12-team tournament will take place at Newtown Park, Bo’ness, Falkirk with the Northern Ireland over 50s hoping to bring back the unique trophy which is made out of Icelandic lava.
Old boys club Throttur Reykjavik have been the main driving force of this new international tournament. Boasting over 200 members, the Icelandic football team have been travelling to Scotland since 2018 to play friendly matches and from those connections, the Lava Cup was born.
The Northern Ireland Vets, who were founded by Gerry Goodall and Sam Wright over two years ago, have been playing charity matches all over Ireland and are now spreading their wings into meaningful competition.
“This is perfect strangers coming together,” said Goodall, a former Irish League player, “and the positive mental health and camaraderie you get out of being involved is limitless.
“We’ve got all walks of life in our team, a whole eclectic mix of people all of whom just wanted to play football.”
The squad trains twice weekly at Lisburn Leisureplex (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and every time they play they raise funds for local charities.
“Every time we play we nominate a charity and over the last couple of years we’ve raised thousands of pounds for McMillan Cancer, Heartbeat Trust, Suicide Awareness, Sands NI and many others,” Goodall said. “That aspect of the team is most important to us.
“These competitions and get-togethers just goes to prove that your sporting and physical activity doesn’t end because you turn 50. This international Lava Cup is getting bigger too with interest coming from countries like Portugal and Denmark for next year, so it’s great to be part of it.”
The Northern Ireland Vets have travelled to Scotland with a 12-man squad for the seven-a-side tournament with games lasting 15 minutes.
