by tmesis »
10 Jun 2018 15:26
Over 2500 go to Enfield Town to see Karpatalya beat pre-match favourites Northern Cyprus on penalties after nervy (ok, a bit crap) 90 minutes.
Apparently the final was meant to be at Crystal Palace (athletics) but they couldn't secure the venue.
As great as the tournament has been, the trophy presentations were a bit of a shambles. Someone decided that every single team (IoM excepted) would receive a trophy, and go up on the balcony for a presentation. A fine idea, but with each team milking the applause for a few minutes, the whole thing lasted ages, about three quarters of an hour in all. By the time Karpatalya actually got up there to lift the overall trophy, most of the crowd had gone home. Despite several on-air corrections, the ConIFA live stream commentator couldn't get over his fixation was calling Karpatalya "kar-patter-liar"
Biggest cheer of all the teams seemed to be for Tibet. They might have lost every game (yet finished 12th!) but they seemed to win the support of the neutrals.