Forget the Euros, it's all about the London Charity Cup!

The annual ReachOut Charity Cup tournament returned to London for the 8^th year running on Friday 3^rd June and it was a huge success!  With 6 corporate teams set to battle it out for the coveted ReachOut Winners trophy, there was everything to play for.

As always, the tournament was organised by young people from the ReachOut Academy programme.  Pinto Kisanga and Korede Tijana, both aged 14 and students at Petchey Academy, spent two days in the ReachOut office planning  the tournament, choosing and ordering the trophies, booking the referees and visiting local shops and businesses to persuade them to donate refreshments (resulting in a £65 donation of food and drink from Co-Op!).  On the day of the tournament they were indispensable, helping to set up the team areas and refreshments, greeting the teams, presenting a short introduction, keeping track of scores and conducting an official trophy presentation ceremony at the end.

Bloomberg, UBS, Macquarie Bank, Rede Partners, Augentius and Stockton FC battled it out in the round robin group stage with the top two teams progressing to the final.   There were some unlucky misses, vital interceptions and impressive goals. All of the teams showed great character and sportsmanship throughout.

Macquarie narrowly missed out on a spot in the final which pitted Bloomberg against Stockton FC.  It was a close game but Stockton FC finally pulled ahead winning the final 3-2 to be crowned the ReachOut Charity Cup Winners 2016!

Pinto and Korede awarded trophies for the following catagories:

Top Goalscorer – Max Barron from Stockton FC

Female Player of the Tournament – Rebecca Jones from UBS

Male Player of the Tournament – Jason Alawo from Bloomberg

Sportsmanship Award – Kristin Butzke from UBS

Charity Cup Tournament Winners 2016 – Stockton FC

James Baulk of Stockton FC had this to say, “Thanks for all the effort that everyone at Reach Out put into the tournament. It was a really enjoyable evening and everything was organised brilliantly”

Pinto, one of our mentee organisers said of his experience, "I had a lot of fun at the ReachOut Charity Cup.  It was a lot of responsibility because everything was organised by me and Korede and it improved my organisation skills and punctuality.  It was a really good experience because we had to set everything up and present the trophies and I recommend to the Yr 8’s that they should do it next year."

ReachOut would like to say thank you to everyone who helped organise the tournament and all the players for taking part – it was a brilliant evening and we hope to see you all again in 2017!