With Autumn now upon us, time for a quick recap of the summer for Amsterdam GAC. For the lads, the squad continues to grow with over 50 players currently registered to play. For the first time in the club's history, we've had strong enough numbers to enter two squads in all of our tournaments, starting in May with our home tournament which was a great way to open our new pitch and clubhouse facilities in Sportlaan. It's a fantasic achievement for a club of Amsterdam's size and credit goes to our coach and various trainers who are getting lads out training every week.
Highlights of the summer included a hard fought final against Belgium in Frankfurt in June, where Amsterdam A's narrowly lost out. We also entered our first European 7's tournament in August and again Belgium were a tough opposition in the semi-finals where the Amsterdam 7's cruely lost to a last second goal, for Belgium to pick up the win by a point.
The gap is narrowing all the time, and both Amsterdam mens teams can take heart that the Benelux region has never been so competitive as it currently is and we're right up there contesting finals. Roll on the European tournaments in September.
For the ladies, also a summer where a number of new players have joined the club and unfortunately the team said goodbye to ever-present players such as Dani McCallion and Lynn Mullin. Catherine, Heather, Jen, and Mary all headed to sunny Spain in June to join up with a Estonia/Holland/Pamplona combined team and compete in the Barcelona tournament.
They were subsequestly expelled from Barcelona for drinking the city dry and rejoind the Holland Ladies in time for their adventures in Munich and the Maastrict tournament in August where they faced off against the Belgium Ladies in the final. Unlucky to be on the losing side, though the girls have been buoyed by a number of team-bonding weekends and novelty type trainings, and are gearing up for their final Euro tournaments starting in September.
