HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The origins of what we now know as the Barcelona International Football go back to the mid eighties, and a Barcelona that is very different to the one we know today. The city was preparing itself for its proudest moment, the 1992 Olympic Games, and busily clearing up the mess of industrial wasteland around the sea front that was a far cry from the tourist paradise it is now. Foreign residents were still something of a rarity, there were none of the Celtic theme bars, glossy English language magazines or ex-pat activities that abound in modern-day Barcelona, the first thing you needed to do if you wanted to get anywhere in the city was learn the local lingo, and get used to Spanish football on TV, because without Internet or Sky TV, you would soon be losing touch with the Premiership.
The vast majority of the British residents that had come to Barcelona were working for generally pitiful wages as English teachers. Many of these wanted to play football, but found it was not that easy to do so. Getting a game of football in Barcelona was no easy thing to do – the Catalans like things to be done through the proper channels, and everything sporty seemingly has to be organised through an officially federated body. Even finding a place for a traditional Sunday afternoon kickaround in the park was not easy – you had to reserve and pay for grotty little pitches that didn’t even have grass. Which is why most locals prefer to stick to futbol sala, played on concrete pitches with little goals and horrible, hard little balls that don’t bounce or curl properly.
Enter Steve Keady, who some 85 years after Joan Gamper had already done the same thing, tried to introduce football to Catalunya, and started organising games between his Anglo American against other language schools, most notably Dublin, the British Institute and Merit. Steve Keady also found the perfect venue, the Bonanova pitch that has since been sold to the Teknon hospital next door. There was often talk of organising some kind of a league, but the general feeling was that it was hard enough getting enough players to turn up for one match a term without trying to start the whole caboodle of a competition. Nobody could be arsed to organise one, not even a simple round robin got off the ground, and the idea was relegated to a topic of idealistic discussion after each match.
Then Nick Simons arrived in Barcelona, the founder of league and still president to this day. He and his teacher chums made a habit of kicking balls through improvised goalposts made of jerseys on any plot of land they could find, and decided to form a team to take on the language academy giants. Naming themselves the Black Sheep, after the bar in C/Tallers that donated a set of shirts, Nick and his boyos weren’t happy with just a few friendlies. No, they wanted a cup to play for. For want of a better name, they called it the Teachers League, and Nick, naturally, appointed himself president, which would be seen with bitterness by Steve Keady ever after, especially when it was decided that matches would be played on ‘his’ pitch at Bonanova. But, slag him off as you will, you’ve gotta hand it to Nick. He managed to get no less than eight teams together, out of nothing, to play the first season of a league that would grow from its humble roots into something that would go on to generate friendships, media interest, sponsorship deals and some very memorable competition.

1992-1993 – SMIRNOFF RINGERS DENY BLACK SHEEP OF INAUGURAL TROPHY

The first league was a tiny affair compared to what it is now. There were no rules, and players regularly played for different teams and if you were short of players there was nothing wrong with borrowing the other team’s subs. Referees were volunteers, and hardly any of the teams had a full set of shirts, let alone with numbers on the back. The teams were divided into two groups of four, making just six games all season (and meaning that it was possible to play for a team AND have a life at the same time). The British Institute (later the Black Horse and later still the Michael Collins), were far and away the team to beat, and coasted Group A, qualifying along with an unknown entity calling themselves Terrassa Victoria. The Celtic Blades played one season before deciding to stick to fútbol sala, while the Anglo American, pretty much all English back then, started more or less where they were due to carry on for many years. At the bottom.
In Group B, Dynamo Smirnoff were too much for Nick’s Black Sheep. The now defunct Dublin at least managed to beat another of those teams who are now little more than a historical anecdote, the University, with Sheffield United kit (??), to finish third.
The Black Sheep, led by Nick Simons and also featuring such league legends as Duncan Foord, Mike Gibson, Mike Connolly, Karl Schulte and Chrissy Brown, made history in the semis by thrashing the all-powerful Brits, and the video still sits proudly on top of Nick Simons’ very dodgy VHS collection. They were to meet the Smirnoffs in the final (the team that has since metamorphosed into the Shamrock), but when the time came to it, Smirnoff couldn’t even get a team out, and rather than call the game off, they called in a load of ringers and beat the Sheep, quite unfairly, 4-3. Or at least that’s Nick Simons story, leading to several seasons of rivalry between him and his hated team. To make up for his loss, Nick, the only player to have ever voted for himself in a club player of the year award, presented himself with the leading goalscorer trophy – having invented a rule that goals scored by other players didn’t count.

1993-1994 – TERRASSA VICTORIA BEGIN THEIR REIGN

In the light of Smirnoff’s controversial win in 93, a new rule was introduced saying that teams could only use three players from other teams – a rule that nobody took a flying handbag’s notice of, with one of the new teams, Barcelona Wednesday, not being much more than an extra team for anybody to play for if their normal team didn’t have a match that weekend. And as there was a problem getting anyone to referee, it was decided that they should be paid (2,500 ptas a game (about 15 euros)). The ‘home’ team had to supply said ref – and what headaches that was going to cause. Another piece of wishful thinking was that captains would note all yellow cards and suspend players accordingly. Needless to say, nobody did – and teams played on happily with several ringers, their own sub as the ref and plenty of suspended players, and then we’d spend hours on end arguing about these matters (and you think things are bad these days).
Two new teams joined, International House/FCUK, and Miró Park in their now legendary lilac tops (who since moved on to become the George & Dragon and are now the Fastnet). In Group One the Sheep started out with 21 goals in two games, and looked to be on their way through along with all-conquering Terrassa, but in a classic game with FCUK, keeper sent off and all, they lost 6-4, which FCUK followed up with a 2-1 win over Terrassa. The Sheep needed to beat Terrassa to avoid surprise elimination, and lost 5-3.
In the other group, the Brits and the Smirnoffs steamrolled their way through, with the Insty becoming the first team to beat the Smirnoffs. Cocky, arrogant buggers as they were, the Smirnoffs had become the team everybody loved to despise, with legendary players like Scouse Chris, who’d play matches with a joint in his hand, and Pipa who’d walk off the pitch as soon as the ref blew a free kick against him.
The semi finals brought trouble for Big Dermot, who was both FCUK’s keeper and an outfield player for Smirnoff. He opted for Smirnoff, with Martin Ames (then of the Sheep) taking over in FCUK goal, where he would play for the whole next season (the now occasional Mallorca 204 stalwart stating that he was too old to play on pitch). The Smirnoffs went through, with the Institute losing yet another semi final, 6-1, to Terrassa – with Scouse Pete going home in a huff when he was told he was sub (something he would have to get used to over the next ten years). The final saw the Smirnoffs take the lead against Terrassa, but then one of the Steve Ks was sent off for one of those handball on the line type incidents, and ten men couldn’t stop Terrassa from claiming their first league title.
With the league over, a cup competition was invented to drag the thing on a little longer, though Smirnoff couldn’t be arsed to enter and Terrassa were knocked out by a guest team called Antigua Travesera, a team who after that match decided that they neither could be arsed with it any more. Got rid of Terrassa quite nicely though, and FCUK went into the semi finals without playing a match, after their famous offer of sorting out their match with Travesera on the toss of a coin after they had twice failed to turn up for matches. Dublin beat them in the semis, and the Sheep beat Miró Park in the latter’s only ever semi final, and in their first season, by 6 goals to 2. The Sheep were already partying at Nick’s dodgy Bar 2 Acto on the Friday before, making it all the more amusing when Dublin beat them 2-1 in the final, the only trophy the Dublin ever won in their 8 years of BIFL.

1994 - 1995 – BLACK SHEEP AT LAST

Smirnoffs had changed. They now had a Barça kit and a new name, Flann O’Briens. They were still a bunch of twats though, and their new sponsors would, a few years later, come to realise that and dump their team and sponsor somebody else (just to help confuse us BIFL historians). It was goodbye BCN Wednesday and University, but hello to three new outfits. Teknon were the lads from the hospital next door to the old ground at Bonanova (Teknon’s encroach upon the league would get even larger when a couple of years later the hospital building itself decided to come to Bonanova and we were left without a pitch). Then we had Nick’s Catalan mates from the Ateneu (crap but with attitudes) and a chirpy little chappie called Richie who called his AC Milan clad side, for no apparent reason, Stella City.
Dublin, who had only paid up the season before on cup final day when Nick said they’d get no medals otherwise, suggested we kick out any team that didn’t pay on time, but got off to a wonderful start with new boys Nathan and Ibrahim doing the work. The League decided to move in the opposite direction to world football and reverted from three to two points for a win. The Sheep were falling apart, Nick leaving the pitch mid match to kiss girls on the touchline, but their new signing, Jaume, kept the side afloat with his goals and over-the-top celebrations. Two historic results saw out the year, the Sheep finally beat their old enemy Smirnoff/Flanns, and Miró Park defeated the Brits after a thrilling 5-4 encounter (and a Mike Roberts hat trick, oh, those were the days). Institute legend Brian Gibson was going around claiming to everyone that he was gagging for it, Nick was inviting the same people each week to his ‘parties’ in Muntaner (with bizarre zebra connotations), Little Dermot was asking them if they had seen his yellow ball, and Scouse Chris of Flanns was seen threatening to punch a referee for not sending off a player (nothing unusual, except that said player was one of his Flanns team mates). It all went out of control in that classic Flanns-Ateneu match, with 22 players bundling each other in a bottle throwing mêlée which saw Frenchman Simone banned for life and Scouse Chris excused because he was the committee’s friend.
FCUK were left needing 4 points from 4 games to qualify. Sadly, two of those were against Terrassa, who were walking away with the group. Not helped by keeper Martin ‘Budgie Bird Geezer’ Ames letting one crucial goal by, later stating that he ‘couldn’t be bothered with diving’, FCUK managed to FCUK it all up and Stella sneaked into the semis, with Richie pulling referee Nick Simon’s shorts down in the process.
In the other group, the Sheep had it easy, but the other place went down to the wire. But the Institute’s revival came too late as usual, and Teknon were getting bored and not turning up with full teams, allowing Flanns to go through on the last day. Flanns were beaten by Terrassa in the first semi final, and the Sheep dealt with Stella on the same day. Terrassa were firm favourites to beat the Sheep in the final, unbeaten in over a year, but they were to fall victims of the same error they would go on to repeat season after season – beat everyone and then throw it all away when it really mattered. Karl did for the BIFL what Geoff Hurst did for the World Cup, with a final hat-trick, the game ended 3-2, and Nick Simons finally got to hold the trophy he had created, and unsuspecting women from Hospitalet to Badalona were about to suffer the torture of Nick explaining to them just what that meant.
Terrassa had already knocked the Sheep out of the cup, 1-0, and went on to the final, the Institute yet again losing a semi final, and again heavily, 6-2. But it was the other semi final that will go down in history. Flanns were taking the piss out of Stella, leading 4-0 before they blew 11 fuses and let in 7 goals, including two penalties and an own goal, had two players sent off, another just walked off (Pipa, as usual) and ended in a fight with Fernando of the bar, whose son played for Stella and had been fouled. A stranger match the BIFL has never seen, and Stella qualified. In the final, Terrassa made light work of Stella, winning 4-0 in a far more forgettable encounter.

1995 - 1996 – BLACK SHEEP DO IT AGAIN

The season nearly began in tragedy when the entire committee was on the verge of being drowned in a flooded bar, and ended up quite literally swimming up the Ramblas to the safety of KFC. While the rest of Barcelona was trying to get to grips with one of the worst floods in the city’s history, chasing after their cars that had suddenly become boats or watching the entire contents of their shop float off down towards the Mediterranean, Ateneu came up with the idea of a play-off, allowing six teams into the final stage. Everybody was too wet to see any reason for argument, and the idea was accepted. Two new teams arrived, one was the ridiculously named Ka Goone Low, formed by former Miró Park player Carles and his Catalan chums, the other was a group of Argentinians who after two riotous encounters were thrown out of the competition, leaving us with one group of 7 and another of just five. Much movement on the transfer market, Jeremy Hickey and Martin joined Stella, laying the foundations of the future Dow Jones and Mallorca 204 teams, Miró signed the entire Black Sheep subs bench, while FCUK went one step further and signed the entire Dublin team.
The matches included a classic encounter in which the referee (Duncan) denied the Insty a last minute winner against Flann O’Smirnoff because the ‘defence wasn’t ready’, several bad tempered Dublin matches, and another in which Ateneu successfully claimed three points against Terrassa because their referee hadn’t turned up – leading to weeks of conversations over whether such strict rules should be allowed to get in the way of the game we’re supposed to be enjoying (sound familiar?). Group A ended with the top three teams tied on 18 points, Ka Goone Low having amazed everybody by playing proper defensive football, and their results showing it. The other group was all a bit silly, Flanns only actually played six games and didn’t even bother with their last two. Most people, however, were far more interested in the women’s league on the small pitch to care too much anyway (won by Lea’s Pachitos)
Both cup semi finals went to penalties, there being something poetic about Dublin getting revenge on FCUK for poaching so many of their players, but nothing poetic about the final between the two bad boy teams of the league. Flanns (spurred on by Scouse Chris and the lad with the hardly witty but highly appropriate nickname Andy ‘Twat’) won the battle (in every sense of the word) 1-0.
Terrassa were beating everybody. Everybody, that is except FCUK, who beat them twice in the groups, knocked them out of the cup, and then saw them out of the league in the semi finals. The Black Sheep easily overcame Flanns, now a fading force as disorganised in-fighting was destroying the team, to set up an intriguing final. The Black Sheep beat FCUK 3-2, the first time that a team has ever successfully defended the league trophy, and also the first time a team had won the title twice.

1996 - 1997 – TERRASSA BACK ON TOP

1996-97 turned out to be the last ever at Bonanova, the news that the ground was to be used as part of the Teknon hospitals’ extension plans was greeted with disbelief, and us old romantics will argue that things have never quite been the same since. There was something about Bonanova that, I’m sorry, Roquetes has never quite managed to recapture: The bar was part of the pitch and the pitch was part of the bar (teams like Flann O’Briens took that to ridiculous extermes, OK, but..). Teknon, the team, also disbanded, while the young Catalan contingent of the Institute decided to form a breakaway side called (we still don’t know why) Storesnay. Despite winning their first game against the Anglo American, it would take the lads over two years to get another win. Transfer news included Karl’s move from the Sheep to FCUK and Carlos Romo getting rejected by everybody before finally settling at Miró. Yet another new system was brought in, the idea that all teams play twice against teams in their own group but also the ‘cross-over’ period in which teams play once against teams in the other groups.
The Dublin were on form as usual, and after one match in which referee Gibson’s very life was on the line, the league kicked them out. Terrassa were on song, and their 19-0 win against Ateneu set a still-to-be-beaten league record. The women’s league led to all kinds of romantic capers, Karl spent most of the time snogging Cristina, American Mike wed Cordera Salvaje Eva, while Martin and Lea chose the day of the league final to seal their matrimony. The general argument was that all the decent teams were in group B, which possibly explains Miró’s majestic qualification. Mike Robert’s joy at scoring a late equaliser in the play off against the Sheep was soon soured by his miss being the only one in the penalty shoot-out. Flanns were on the verge of break-up, but the ineptitude of their rivals saw them into a play-off, where they then beat an over-confident Stella, before being hammered by Terrassa. The Sheep joined them in the final after an amazing semi-final against FCUK. The game went into extra time, and FCUK even scored first, before a couple of Geoff Hurst type crossbar goalline bouncing goals sent them all mad and the Sheep ended up banging them away like drugged up cowboys. The final itself was a fiercely one-sided affair, and Terrassa finally regained the trophy, all mixed in with a wedding ceremony in the background.
Terrassa were far and away the team of the season, but Stella got the better of them in the cup. It took several years for them to finally admit that they had cheated and played with two Dutch semi-pro ringers. In the other semi-final, the Sheep beat the Institute on penalties, and that despite both Nick Simons and Irish Mike missing their kicks. In the final, Stella and the Sheep made a gentleman’s agreement to play with their regular players rather than seat ‘dodgy’ players on the bench. Rumour has it that the Sheep didn’t stick to the agreement, but whatever the case, the Sheep won convincingly.

1997 - 1998 – NEW BOYS CLANSMAN SHOCK THE ESTABLISHMENT

And so it was that 1995-1996 was the first season at the league’s new home, Montañesa, or as we incorrectly preferred to call it, Roquetes, after the name of the nearby metro station that has since joined BIFL tradition by changing its own name, to Via Julia. Ateneu and Ka Goone Low decided that enough was enough and left the league, but along came two new teams. Carlos Romo formed his new side, the International Gothics (later to become International Paradís), complete with their joints in the changing rooms and lurid rasta-style kit. Another Miró reject, Scottish Paul, formed his Scottish team, the Clansman, although everybody really knew that all he had done was sign the entire Flann O’Briens team. They left behind a team that was no longer the merry band of troublemakers of days gone by (except for the Miles head-butting incident), but was clearly devoid of any decent players. The Dublin, who we thought we had banned, were back, and their captain, Michael Shiels decided to turn to refereeing, seeking revenge for his team’s dismissal by booking anybody that moved. Bollocks, said Ian Stevens of Terrassa. Off. Another controversial game was the one where the Clansman didn’t even bother turning up to play Stella and then refused to accept that this should mean that they had lost. Terrassa and FCUK strolled Group A, and Stella were safe in third before hitting the self-destruct button and losing all four remaining matches to let the Dublin through. In Group B, Alex and Miguel Angel had tired of Storesnay and were back with the rejuvenated Institute, who amazingly won the group. The Sheep came through in second, and the dodgy Clansman side, on the verge of folding, crawled through in third ahead of Miró and Flanns. They then beat boring FCUK to become surprise semi finalists.
The Sheep were devastated by Terrassa in the first semi final, whereas the Insty were delighted to face Clansman, safe in the knowledge that at last they were on their way to their first ever final. But the Clansman won the match, to set up what looked like was going to be the most one sided final in BIFL history (with Terrassa on steady course to complete the first ever league and cup double). But with their German ringer running rings around the Terrassa defence, the Clansman, bagpipes and all, continued their amazing run-in by winning the league in their first ever season. Terrassa were left gobsmacked. Clansman, who had started the season as a joke team, even losing 6-1 to Miró, had ended up winning a title without anyone quite understanding how.
The Sheep were again put to shame by Terrassa in the cup semi final, while guest entrants Michael Collins beat another guest, Sitges, in the other. The final was a nasty old affair, with the Collins keeper going apeshit when he (wrongly) believed Terrassa’s second goal was offside. His attack on the ref, the linesman, the changing room and anything else at hand saw him banned from the league, and Terrassa picked up their medals amongst an atmosphere that more resembled a battlefield.

1998 - 1999 – MICHAEL COLLINS, MARCEL, AND THAT FINAL

In 1998, the name ‘Teachers League’ was finally laid to rest. We were now the hugely marketable Barcelona International Football League (BIFL), although it took some time to get used to the new name, and new and official looking rules were written, including the insistence on proper numbered shirts, and we even had a web site, and a sponsor, beer and bar accessory suppliers Biere Servis. Last year’s guest entrants, Sitges and the Michael Collins, joined the party full time. The annual trip to Sitges’ seaside became a highlight of the BIFL year that is sorely missed now that the team has left the league. Meanwhile, Celtic and English theme bars were springing up all over the city, and many of them, were hungry to get in one action and sponsor teams. Terrassa became the ‘Dick Turpins’ and started playing matches in their own grimy little city, while the Gothics were sponsored by reggae club Paradise. Flann O’Briens turned their back on their own sponsor to become the Shamrock, while a new chap called Lucas Brown formed a new side, temporarily naming it Real Balmes before finding a sponsor... Flann O’Briens. Scandal at The Black Sheep, with Nick Simons eventually being kicked out of the team and embarking on a most unhappy year at Stella. The season started as it was due to finish, in chaos. The draw was made, and then re-drawn when it looked too similar to the previous season.
Josema of Roquetes decided to take over the referees, and find us semi-pros. Not only did he fail miserably, but he was also left with egg on his face when we discovered that he was actually pocketing a fair share of the money for himself. Further chaos with the Anglo American turning up late for their game in Sitges and blaming the committee, Chiquillo of Anglo American kicking the league’s new resident ref, José, and getting banned for life, Paradís nicking Stella’s keeper’s jersey, Sergio of Terrassa setting new standards in yellow and red card collection, and Pat Collman of Miró scoring his first ever goal. The Anglos knocked Stella out of the cup, but almost lost their place for not wearing numbers on their shirts, only escaping because that particular league rule made no reference to cup matches. The pichichi chart was left in chaos when Wayne Collins of Flanns scored about ten against a 9 man Miró with a one legged keeper playing in a quagmire.
Group One was far and away Terrassa’s property, once again looking unstoppable, and the British Institute came an easy second. Dublin were safe in third, but then lost a decisive game to the new boys with the hideous kit, the Michael Collins – a game the Collins needed to win by four goals, and did – and a game that had everything from ambulances to five red cards. The Collins still needed a miracle to qualify, but won their last two games while the Dublin fell into a shambles from which they would never recover. The Collins went through, but only because Flanns had had six cruel points deducted for missing the payment date. Twice.
Group Two was a much simpler affair. FCUK, the Clansman and Stella spent the whole season knowing they were already all but qualified, part of the reasoning behind the calls for a new system. The big story was the demise of the post-Simons Black Sheep, who had always wanted a second division to stick all these crap teams in, and now that one was a very likely possibility, were going to be one of the teams in it. A new ‘Plate’ competition was devised for the end of the season, won by a Flanns team that was only too grateful for the 6 points they had lost, beating a Paradís team that was so annoyed with the ref that the only medal they wanted was the one to stick up his arse.
The cup started out with the Sheep missing every shot in a penalty shoot out with the Institute, and Stella’s demise at the hands of the numberless Anglo American who then beat Sitges to reach the semi final, where they went down 8-0 to Terrassa’s footballing steamrollers. Terrassa went on to win their record third cup, against the Clansman to avenge their defeat in the league final of 1999.
The play offs saw two surprises, the Brits beat Stella (who always refused to have any ‘bad’ players and subsequently found it hard to play a whole season with just ten players), and the Collins beat defending champs Clansman. The Institute lost semi final number six, this time to FCUK, but the real shock was in the other match. The Michael Collins, who had lost 8-0 to the Anglo American a few weeks earlier, played the game of their lives against double-chasing Terrassa, totally outplayed them and won 3-1. After a season in which nobody had even come close to challenging them, losing only two games, Terrassa were furious to go out to a team that had done bugger all and had finished 30 points below them in the group stage, and would never have even qualified had Flanns not had six points deducted. Nick Bedson immediately set about proposing a new system.
The Michael Collins finished off this most incredible appearance from nowhere in the final by winning a dull old match, 1-0, against FCUK. But that was just the beginning. They had played Marcel, a Black Sheep player, in goal as a last resort measure, with their other keepers unavailable. This was against the rules and led to the greatest scandal in BIFL history. The Collins were disqualified, there was talk of a shared trophy, FCUK being champions, a re-match, and there were meetings after meetings with Flavio and Nathan on FCUK’s side pledging open warfare, Leigh resigning as FCUK manager, Steve Varley resigning as treasurer, all kinds of accusations of bias on the committee and calls for president Simons’ head. Chaos. Eventually, the Collins were given their trophy back, but the whole episode left a very bitter taste in many mouths. The BIFL League needed big changes...

1999 - 2000 – VELOCCIRAPTOR CHANGE THE SHAPE OF THE LEAGUE

The most important change was the decision to finally do away with the two-group system. It had been argued that there were too many irrelevant first phase games, and everything came down to a few games in June. The other argument was that things needed to be more competitive, and that two divisions would level things up more. The new idea was for everyone to play each other once, then divide into two groups, with the first division carrying the points over from the first phase. The idea came in a last resort measure to stop the idea of two divisions full stop. Curiously enough, if we had stuck to that system, the two teams who came to dominate the season, the Sheep and Velocciraptor, would have been in the second division!
With BIFL growing stronger every year, more and more theme pubs wanted to get in on the act, in the belief that sponsoring a team would bring in big bucks. Stella became the Dow Jones, Miró Park became the George & Dragon, and even the Institute succumbed to the temptation of sponsorship money, and became the Black Horse. Just one new team joined the league, but what a team. Velocciraptor, a former 3ª regional side, decided to drop down a level or two, and when they beat Terrassa 4-0 in one of their first games, we were immediately aware that we had indeed invited a dinosaur of a team into the league, with a massive squad, midweek training, and all the seriousness of a team that BIFL had always been a reaction against. That result indicated something else, too. The demise of Terrassa, the most consistent team in BIFL history, who we’d assumed would run away with a one-league format, crumbled to just a sad reminder of what they had been before. In fact it was the Dow Jones, the first team to beat the Raptors, who led the table for much of the season, things going horribly wrong ever after their 7-0 humiliation against the rising Sheep and Jeremy putting the ball in his own net against FCUK.
With so many games, the league could no longer be played at just one venue. Instead, games were now to be played at wind-swept Trinitat, in Sitges and Terrassa, and even on grass, at Caldes.
What would the BIFL be without its scandals? Nothing, and we had a fair few this year, too. Teams would lose points for not having numbers, and the Clansman forgot their shirts for the Sitges game. The set they borrowed was not numbered. Points off. Was this not just getting a little bit silly? And then half the league failed to meet the payment deadline. If Flanns had suffered the season before – now everybody was going to have to. With the league table messed up with asterisks all over, the committee decided to have an amnesty and re-award all those deducted points. But not the Black Sheep’s. Jaume had been suspended for two matches, but the Sheep insisted on playing him regardless, with some pedantic excuse about late replies to an appeal. They were not allowed to keep the point for their draw with the Insty. The most delightful match, however, was the Dublin’s game with the Collins – Carlos Romo, referee, told Dublin what wankers they all were before the match, then went on to send off five players. Dublin eventually decided to walk off the pitch, and Carlos was kindly asked to refrain from refereeing any further matches. Dublin, meanwhile, were just not getting it together, and the team that had caused most headaches to the league over the years finally resigned from the competition altogether midway through the season, shortly after yet another mass walk off, this time against the Black Horse. This led to further scandal because Jason Pye, the Clansman’s new forward with an attitude had scored eight goals against the Dublin, and would now have to lose them. Jason still ran in as leading goalscorer in the end, with a record 32 goals.
Another impressive team was Flann O’Briens, who supplied the first player of the year award winner in Nigerian Francis, and other quality players like Oscar and Toni. Quite how Lucas Brown managed to turn this international circus of talent into a side only capable of producing very average results, we’ll never know. After the league had split in two, FCUK and the Black Sheep had excellent second legs, and everything finally came down to the Sheep-Velocciraptor game in May. In what was effectively the league final, the Raptors won 3-1, so for the third time running a new team had taken the title. But for once, nobody could argue that the best team hadn’t won.
The second division was won by Sitges. Nobody quite knew how, because they had been crap over the season, and had even considered dropping out, saying that the competition was just too good. Meanwhile, at the other end, the Institute, now the Black Horse, had made an odd decision. Nick Simons, rejected by Dow Jones, after a brief flirtation with Shamrock (Simons a Smirnoff? Whatever next?), was invited to the Black Horse. As manager. The side that on so many occasions had come within sniffing distance of actually winning titles, under Nick’s expert management, collected their first ever trophy. The wooden spoon.
The cup took on a new look, too. It became a mini-Champions League type thing, with four groups before the knockout stages. A few surprises were in store. The sad shadow of the great side of years gone by, Terrassa, finished below the Anglo American and Storesnay. Storesnay could have done so much better, but lost the points from their game with the Anglos due to having played with two ineligible players. And FCUK, so strong in the league, were mysteriously shite in the cup and lost each game handsomely. Eventually it was down to the same teams who had dominated the league, the Black Sheep and Velocciraptor, to meet in the final. The Sheep pulled back from 2-2 down to take the game into penalties (the first BIFL title to be decided that way), and thanks to two Alvar saves and Velocciraptor's inability from the spot, the Black Sheep picked up their first trophy since 1996, and stopped Velocciraptor from claiming the first ever BIFL double.

2000 - 2001 – JASON PYE LEADS CLANSMAN BACK TO GLORY

The season started with the bizarre news that the Dow Jones would not be entering the league, claiming that they didn’t have a squad. This struck neutrals as very odd because as far as we could tell, they had practically all the same players as they had had a year before, and it seemed that if they didn’t have a team they felt could win the league, then they really couldn’t see the point of playing. So, accusations of glory-hunting were rife when it turned out that the Dow Jones had effectively merged with the Clansman to produce a super-team. Steve Dorrity, Dave Coote, Kevin Dunn, Dutch Mike, Pau Ortega and co all sloped off to join Paul Hackett, Chelsea John and a Jason Pye who was rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of the league title. He kept us all informed of their progress in the league publication, the Fanzine, which was sadly going into its final year – “you could see the fear in the Velocciraptor players eyes as they arrived at the ground”.
At the other end of the scale, the BIFL welcomed Mu Gung Hwa, a team of Koreans who certainly added an exotic touch to the league, but have sat firmly at the bottom of the table every single season, but unlike the Dow Jones do understand the concept of ‘it’s not the winning it’s the taking part’. In their first year of BIFL action, they only managed to get one point, from a 3-3 draw with Flann O’Brien. The main concern with the Koreans has always been whether or not they will get a side out, but there have also been plenty of moments of weird behaviour. However, there was something comical about seeing the Koreans using their martial arts skills in a bust-up with the Anglo American and watching some of the Catalan players running away in terror!
Black Sheep goalkeeper Alvar announced he was leaving the side to form his own team, the Catalan Knights, yet another Catalan team in a league that was gradually moving away from its ex-pat roots to take on more and more locals. The Knights’ Oriol Fabregas would end the season as second top scorer as the Knights earned a reputation as one of the highest scoring teams the league has ever known, yet also having one of the poorest defences.
And league president Nick Simons, ejected in disgrace as manager of the Black Horse, realised his childhood dream by forming a team called West Ham, drafting in the few Irons fans he could find in the city plus several Spaniards, including forward Enric Sales, who would put Jason Pye firmly in his place by banging away a record 49 goals to take the pichichi title for the first of three years in succession. He was also voted player of the year in the first ever end-of-season gala, held at Pasa Tapas.
Meanwhile Spurs fan Lucas Brown made the odd decision of kitting his Flannd team out in Arsenal style red and white shirts (!).
We also lost the Trinitat pitch midway through the season – the land was needed for development of the metro. So, we were ushered off to Vallbona, stuck out in the middle of nowhere between a railway track and a graveyard.
The season was plagued with controversy from start to finish – and the Black Horse seemed to develop the habit of being at the heart of it every time. First, we had an incident in Sitges where the home team considered Steve Love responsible for breaking Henrik’s collarbone and declaring him a persona non grata at their ground. Then there was the incident against Velocciraptor in which the Raptors kicked the ball out of play for a player to be treated for injury, but the Horse considered this blatant time wasting and carried on playing and scored regardless. A later game between the same two sides was abandoned due to rain with the Raptors leading 2-0 and Horse manager Steve Varley insisting the game should be replayed from the start because it would not be fair as “everybody knows Velocciraptor are a first-half side and we’d have to play two first halves against them”.
This was not the only game to need completion on a different day, and the other also involved Velocci, this time against the Michael Collins. A slagging match between Velocciraptor’s Pau Serrat and the Collins’ Toni, which apparently started with somebody calling somebody’s girlfriend names, ended in fisticuffs and referee Ramón blew for time – unjustifiably as was later decided. And then there was Inter Paradis keeper Carlos Romo’s horrendous leg-breaking tackle on Michael Collins player Chris. Carlos himself accepted that what he had done was unacceptable and vowed never to play in the BIFL ever again. Problems with Paradis were as rife as ever this season, and eventually led the league to decide not to accept them back the year after.
Another team with whom the league had a strained relationship was Sitges, who played all their games in their own town and took a very blasé attitude to league regulations. When asked to come into Barcelona to play their second phase fixture with the George and Dragon, they flatly refused to come and were handed an automatic 3-0 defeat.
There was so much nonsense flying around the league that it was finally decided that it was time to hand all power to the five-man committee. Chaotic General League Meetings at which all manner of ridiculous suggestions could often get voted through became a thing of the past, and with retrospect, things have generally worked much better for it.
Yet another new format was used for the league, which this time divided into three divisions, the idea being to give teams something to play for as long as possible. Storesnay won their first ever honour by winning the third division, while the Shamrock took the second. FCUK suffered an amazing fall from grace, and a side more used to challenging for titles needed a last day win to avoid collecting the wooden spoon. It took the Black Horse a long time to accept that the Fanzine was right in saying that they were out of the title race after getting off to a fantastic start, but as expected there were only two teams left in it by the end, the Clansman and defending champions Velocciraptor. Jason Pye’s ranting and the Dow Jones issue had most neutrals rooting for anyone but the Clansman to win the title, but the Raptors fell 2-1 to Terrassa with just two games remaining, and the Clansman ended up winning their second championship with a game to spare.
However, there was to be no double celebration, the Clansman were dumped unceremoniously out of the cup in the group stages by a shock 6-2 defeat to the Anglo American, leaving the Horse and Anglos in a position whereby, had they wanted, they could have fixed the result and both gone through, although as it happened, the Clansman were unable to beat FCUK in their final game anyway.
The Anglo American had ended the league season stuck in the third division, but their amazing run in a cup competition that was full of shocks continued when they beat Velocciraptor in the quarters before eventually going out to the Michael Collins.
There the Collins would meet West Ham – after Nick had enjoyed the excitement of knocking out his former team, the Black Sheep, as well as Terrassa (amazingly, the only ‘first division’ team reach the semi finals). The Hammers won 3-1 in a memorable final, so for the first time in three years a ‘rookie’ team may not have won the league, but new side West Ham did get to lift the Cup!

2001 - 2002 – CLANSMAN BECOME FIRST THREE-TIME WINNERS

After nine years of constant controversies, the tenth anniversary edition of the now-Strongbow sponsored BIFL was a relatively trouble-free year. Now that the committee had absolute control it seemed team captains were more intent on winning matches on the pitch rather than testing the system with different kinds of outrageous appeals.
And getting rid of International Paradis certainly helped, even though several of members of the team we had banned merely reappeared as part of former FCUK player Phil Bruff’s latest project – Mallorca 204, the address of the team’s Philharmonic sponsor. Many refused to even consider this a new team, as most of the players were taken from the now-defunct Dow Jones, including one or two who had played a role in the Clansman’s league win the season before.
The other new team was the brainchild ex-Black Horse Gary Moore, who found a sponsor in sister pub the Wellington Arms. Despite a slow start, the team has since gone through several name changes to become one of the powerhouses of the BIFL.
Meanwhile, the former Miró Park Rangers and George and Dragon moved on to its third incarnation, the Fastnet, while Niall Lynch stood down as manager of the Michael Collins, and the team’s star forward, Dominic Hasson, defected to Flann O’Brien. Five games into the season, under the management of Alberto ‘Torpedo’, the Collins had lost every game, scoring none and conceding 28, a record even Mu Gung Hwa would have been ashamed of. Niall tells the story that he saw Alberto sitting in the bar while the team was playing outside, and he didn’t even know what the score was. So, the wily Irishman returned to captain the side, bringing in an amazing Russian keeper, and his usual determined attitude. They were losing 5-0 to the Clansman when the game was called off due to rain. Most managers would have let the result stand, but not our Niall. He insisted on playing out the remaining fifteen minutes on a separate date. They didn’t come back to win that one, but they did slowly crawl up the table and eventually edge the Wellington to the second division championship.
Manolo Torrijos took over from Roger Jimenez at the Anglo American and sparked a revolution. The perennial whipping boys led the table with nine wins and a draw before losing to the Shamrock, but were still one of the strongest challengers for the title and haven’t looked back since.
FCUK also recovered from their previous year’s disaster by finishing reasonably high (and it was good to see former manager Leigh Tebbutt back from injury), while Velocciraptor were nowhere near the title race and started suggesting that this could be their last season. But they would be back.
A team that wouldn’t be back was the Black Sheep. Duncan had decided that this would be his last season and the team with the best all-time record in the league could find nobody to replace him, and slowly faded into nothing, struggling to get sides out and ending near the bottom of the second division. It was a sad day to lose one of the founder members of the league. At least Mike Roberts and his Fastnet finally managed to beat the Sheep, albeit with the help of a couple of Swedish semi-pro ringers!
The Fastnet also picked up one of the most surprising signings of the season – the man who was supposed to be captaining the Clansman to its third league title - Jason Pye! Exactly what happened to cause the fall-out at the Clansman was never all that clear, there was talk of money and skiing trips and who knows what else. Yet the Pyeman’s time at the Fastnet was not a successful one, while the Clansman, runaway leaders in the league, but without its mentor, started letting points slip away.
Sitges were once again causing problems, especially Rick Broadbent, who seemed to think the league committee spent its entire time devising ways to piss him off. His verbal outburst on referee Paul Gregson was punished with a hefty ban, while there was further controversy when Sitges had to play Terrassa. Neither side was willing to travel to the other’s respective city, so the game simply never got played!
Speaking of feisty players, Terrassa finally decided that the time had come to tell their Argentinian hatchet man Sergio, the reason for many a Saturday night spent hobbling, that enough was enough. He was kicked out of the team.
There was further controversy when Flann O’Brien keeper Quino Soto was involved in an incident that resulted in Black Horse player Pip Riba being very seriously injured. The Horse appealed and the committee slapped a hefty ban on Quino, despite claims from Flanns that the Black Horse appeal was an exaggeration. And it probably was, because within a week, Pep was back on the pitch and scoring both the Horse’s goals in a 2-1 win against the Fastnet. Pep went on to win the Player of the Year award.
And Mu Gung Hwa finally won a game, 5-3 against the Shamrock. Shamrock manager Jordi suggested after the game that the Koreans had got much better and would beat a lot of teams that year. They only got one more point, from a 6-6 draw with the Black Sheep, while even the Fastnet managed their first ever clean sheet in ten years of asking when beating them 5-0.
Enric Sales of West Ham certainly didn’t have the same troubles with the Koreans, scoring a record eleven goals against them, and broke his own season record to retain the pichichi trophy with 57 goals. But West Ham themselves didn’t achieve much at all, leading to accusations that they were a one-man outfit.
Despite a slight drop of form towards the end, there was never really anything anybody could do to prevent the Clansman from running away with their second league title in a row. The Anglo American came closest but lost 3-1 when the teams came head to head in a foul tempered match that ended with an Anglo American player deciding to empty the contents of the Montañesa dustbins.
So to the Cup, which had reverted to a straight knockout format, and Velocciraptor suffered an early exit as Zahir scored both goals in a 2-1 win for the Shamrock, who would go all the way to the semi finals before losing to Terrassa in a game that was delayed for several weeks after yet another match in a very wet season was called off because of rain.
The Clansman’s hopes of that elusive double were dashed at the quarter final stage by the Black Horse, 4-1, in a game where Mike Turner could even afford to miss his first ever penalty (or so he said). In the semi finals the Horse were beaten by Mallorca 204, but accused Bruff’s side of some serious gamesmanship that they would take some time to forget.
Mallorca 204 were seeking to become the fifth new BIFL team in as many years to win a trophy, but failed to do so, beaten 2-0 by Terrassa in a very dull final and not exactly being supported by the Black Horse. This was a record fourth Cup win for Terrassa and proof that there is life in the old dog yet.

2002 - 2003 – MALLORCA’S 204 REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

With the Black Sheep condemned to myth, Sitges also bode farewell to the BIFL and joined a veterans league. Gary Moore’s Wellington Arms now became the Temporary Bar, while we also welcomed a new side – Flaherty. Manager Steve Curry’s almost tear-jerking rant after the side was accepted at the league assembly will go down in BIFL legend, as will as his demands for grass pitches, linesmen, and who knows what else.
The season began with the first ever Super Cup, won by the Clansman 3-1 against Velocciraptor. Niall Lynch of the Michael Collins was offering 4/5 on the Clansman to win their third league title, while the Mallorca 204 lads decided to lay a more ambitious gamble on their own side winning the title at 12/1.
Flaherty failed to live up to Mr Curry’s promises, and didn’t get a win until February, and that was only against Mu Gung Hwa, who as usual were propping up the table with such impressive results as a 17-2 defeat in Terrassa.
Flann O’Brien were the early pace setters, but soon fell by the wayside, despite the mid-season discovery of Ersoy Tewfik, with a run of four consecutive defeats including a 12-2 thrashing at the hands of the Black Horse, whose season had got off to a dreadful start.
The Horse was also involved in one of the few scandals in a relatively trouble-free year. The incident involved alleged violence by Steve Love in Terrassa, which was particularly juicy because the Scotsman was part of the five-man committee responsible for disciplinary decisions. When the committee decided to impose a ban, Steve immediately resigned from his post. But The Horse went about rejuvenating their aging squad, and ended the season with their first ever trophy, albeit ‘only’ the second division title.
The Fastnet developed an amazing knack of squandering leads, in one game managing to turn a comfortable 3-0 advantage on West Ham into a miserable 8-3 defeat.
FCUK also returned to the bottom half of the table, although those present still swear that Carles Garriga’s overhead kick against West Ham was the best that has ever been scored in the history of the league.
But another of the traditionally weaker sides, Storesnay, followed fellow Catalan outfit Anglo American’s example by turning into a decent side almost overnight. They didn’t actually win anything, but such results as a 2-2 draw with the Clansman and a win against then leaders Velocciraptor did have a huge bearing on the way the league eventually panned out.
Early leaders Flann O’Brien didn’t even make it into the first division, while Velocciraptor and Anglo American’s own challenges gradually came to nothing (the Anglos realising their year was over when losing 2-4 to a nine-man Michael Collins), making it seem like another runaway Clansman win was on the cards.
Then the Scottish bar was upset 4-2 by the Shamrock (who also knocked them out of the Cup) and fell from grace in spectacular fashion with a run of five consecutive defeats, including a 7-0 rout at the hands of Mallorca 204, with manager John Stoker leaving early because he couldn’t bear to watch any more. The Clansman blamed a series of injuries and several players not being available for this remarkable drop in form, which included them turning up to play Mu Gung Hwa with just nine men and being fortunate enough to avoid embarrassment by the fact that the Koreans went two better and arrived with only seven.
And so it was that, with many people not really knowing how, Mallorca 204 moved into a seven-point lead at the top of the table. Everybody kept saying that they would never stay the distance, and indeed, as the season drew to a close, they lost to both the Clansman and Velocciraptor, and Terrassa narrowed the gap enough to leave things down to the final day.
Meanwhile, the Clansman had their full team back at last and began making up for their mid-season slump with an amazing run of results that very nearly snatched the league title after all. One of the main reasons was Bo Stenberg, who scored six in a 12-0 rout of potential league champions Terrassa, and added another six against the Michael Collins a week later to eventually come within two goals of Enric Sales in the pichichi race. West Ham’s Enric just managed to secure a tremendous third consecutive leading goalscorer award, but Bo’s achievements did not go unrecognised, and he was voted BIFL Player of the Year.
The final day eventually turned into something of an anti-climax, with Terrassa needing to beat the Michael Collins and hope Mallorca overcome the Temporary Bar in the game directly after. Terrassa led 1-0 before Freddy netted a late equaliser for the Collins, and in a festive atmosphere, Mallorca went on to beat the Temporary Bar 5-0 safe in the knowledge that the title was already theirs. Fittingly, the founder and manager of the side, Phil Bruff, scored one of those five goals.
But it was especially ironic that it should have been the Collins who delivered premature success to Mallorca, because the Philharmonic boys had of course placed a 12/1 bet with Niall at the start of the season, and now the Michael Collins manager was going to have to pay out big money…
Many people, not least the Clansman players themselves, were heard to comment that they, and not Mallorca 204, had been the better side, especially considering their amazing late form. At the end of season gala, on collection of the Fair Play they promised they would be back next season to win back the league. But Mallorca 204 had proven that this league is a marathon and not a sprint, and that it is consistency that pays off in the end – something none of their direct rivals had been capable of.
Mallorca 204’s chances of becoming the first team to do the league and cup double collapsed with elimination on penalties by the Michael Collins at the semi finals stage, while the Shamrock battled through to a second consecutive semi final and lost again, this time to Velocciraptor.
This was the Collins’ third Cup final appearance, and it once again ended in defeat, and this time a heavy one, to Velocciraptor, who won their first trophy since the League title in 2000 with a 6-2 win. This was a very different Michael Collins team to the side that had achieved so much before, including a load of Scandinavian students that were hardly ever seen anywhere near the pub. And when Niall Lynch was named substitute for the Final and never even got onto the pitch, the rumour mills started suggesting that that might well be the last we would be seeing of the Michael Collins…

2003 - 2004 – BO BLASTS METROPOLITAN TO FOURTH TRIUMPH

The summer break included all the usual rumours of the Michael Collins not having a squad and wanting to drop out of the league. Only this time they meant it, and the 1999 league champions and three-time cup finalists were gone.
Mu Gung Hwa were also to be no more, after the league assembly decided that it had had enough of its constant no-shows. But as ever, the decision was overruled at the following meeting, as was the idea that Terrassa should no longer be allowed to play games on their home pitch.
Gary Moore’s team changed it’s name for the third year running, now becoming Dynamo 23, while we welcomed a new team, the oddly named Cranks. This bunch of Catalans was made up of former youth team players that had not made the grade at adult level, and decided to join our league instead. We expected big things, but they were hopelessly organised, letting 17 goals in against Velocciraptor and even letting the Fastnet score ten. When they decided a trip to Terrassa was out of the question, the league was alarmed to learn that they were trying to play a whole season with a squad of just twelve men! Although they did pick up a little towards the end of the season, this was to be their first and only season in the BIFL.
Another side to have renamed itself was the Clansman, who had signed a sponsorship deal with Metropolitan magazine. They were back with a vengeance after missing out on the 2003 title, and destroyed defending champions Mallorca 204, 5-2, in the opening game, then beat Velocciraptor 5-1 and Terrassa 2-1. They had started the season by beating the three best teams, other than themselves, in the previous campaign! As the cliché goes, it looked like the league would be over by Christmas.
Mallorca 204’s yellow card champion Gerard Sanchez got his season off to a tremendous start by getting booked before he had even gone onto the pitch. It was to be a torrid season for Mallorca, who were just a shadow of the side that had won its first championship the year before, and they did not even qualify for the first division – the worst ever defence of a BIFL league title. The side that had chased Mallorca the hardest, Terrassa, also suffered a slump, also ending up in the second division – the poorest season ever for the side with the best all-time record of any in the BIFL.
Meanwhile, Mu Gung Hwa set new standards in ineptness. As late as February they had still only scored two goals, and conceded no less than 78. They ended up letting in 152, an average of more than seven a game! Yet they still battled on.
And a heart-warming story from the Dynamo 23 v Catalan Knights game, when Dynamo scored when a Knights player was seriously injured. Seeing what had happened, Dynamo repented and stood back after the restart and allowed a Knights player through to score.
Then, just when it looked like nobody was ever going to stop the Metropolitan, came the bombshell. The Black Horse was no more and was going to become… the Michael Collins! Along with the new sponsorship, Steve Varley was able to hand pick from the remnants of the former Collins team, which included Stian and Romanian Mihal, as well as Ersoy Tewfik who had, much to Lucas’ annoyance, been poached from Flanns. The new look side immediately played the Metropolitan off the park to beat them 7-3 in the cup, and were suddenly full of confidence and going around claiming that this time, at last, they were prepared to make a major assault on the league title.
But the Metropolitan was still looking very strong, although many did believe it was something of a one-man show with Bo Stenberg breaking all kinds of goalscoring records. He bagged ten in a game against the Shamrock, scored all nine in a 9-0 trouncing of the Fastnet, got another nine against Cranks, and five against Flaherty! Many people were heard to mutter that he was simply too good for our league, and indeed, when the season was over, and he had ended Enric Sales’ monopoly of the pichichi award with a record 68 goals and won the Player of Year Award for the second year running, he signed for ‘proper’ club CF Alella.
The Metropolitan’s first dropped points were in a 1-1 draw with Dynamo 23, who were developing into a very strong side and taking themselves very seriously indeed. People suspected that they would eventually tail out of the running, but it wasn’t until as late as March that they lost a league match, 3-1 to the Anglo American, who were once again among the top teams.
The Michael Collins, meanwhile, was facing an upward struggle. Before signing all those new players, they had been in a very average position, and with the top teams not dropping points, they had an enormous deficit to make up. Disaster struck when they faced the Shamrock, who had lost all nine league matches played to date, and Steve Varley decided to give the subs a run out. Underestimating the opposition is never a wise move, even in our league, and the Shamrock held the Collins to a draw.
But the Collins did bounce back by inflicting what would turn out to be the only defeat of the season on Metropolitan, coming back from behind to seal the win with two injury time goals even after Oscar had been sent off, but the hooped ones were ultimately fortunate to only just squeeze through into the first division.
And a very tight first division it was indeed. Lucas Brown had overcome the odds to keep his Flanns side in the running, but just like the season before, they fell away to nothing towards the end of the season. They lost every game in the first division, and Lucas once quipped that “we are only sixth because there aren’t seven teams in it!” Velocciraptor and the Anglo American maintained the pace for quite a while, but ultimately it all came down to a head to head battle between the Metropolitan and Dynamo 23.
The Metropolitan showed their class by ending the Anglo American’s hopes with a 6-1 win and five more goals for Bo, but Dynamo got their chance when the Metropolitan could only draw with Velocciraptor, but they failed to capitulate and lost 1-2 to the Anglo American a week before the head to head showdown between the leaders. And Dynamo blew it, going 2-0 up, but allowing Bo and Dutch Mike to make it 2-2 and leave them depending on Flanns doing them a favour on the final day. But Flanns had crumbled as a team, and Metropolitan made no mistake by winning 11-1 to win the BIFL for the fourth time (including three as Metropolitan).
The Catalan Knights won the second division with ease, perhaps because their main rivals, Terrassa, West Ham and Mallorca 204 were more used to playing for bigger incentives, while the Shamrock, who had started their season so awfully, claimed the third division after runaway leaders Fastnet pressed the self-destruct button once again. That meant that the Shamrock became the only team to have won the first, second and third division titles plus the BIFL Cup.
All the big guns made it through a very predicable Cup group stage, but there was near controversy when the Michael Collins protested having to play Dynamo 23 in the quarterfinals, resorting to the rulebook to observe that they had not been given sufficient notice of the draw. The appeal was rejected but the Collins went on to beat the Dynamos anyway, to go into their eighth league or cup semi final. And just like the seven before, they lost this one too, this time to the Metropolitan, who would be joined by defending champions Velocciraptor in the final, who beat Mallorca 204.
It looked like the in-form Metropolitan were dead certs to finally bag that elusive league and cup double, especially when Alex Greenhough scored practically from the kick off. Dragos equalised for Velocci, then Alex scored his and Metropolitan’s second. A controversial Paul Fridman equaliser was then adjudged by referee Pizarro to have crossed the line, and tempers saw John Stoker and Txe Gasch get their marching orders as the game went into penalties.
Mike Ouwehand, Wim Vanhaelewijk and John Bolsover all missed from the spot for the Metropolitan, while Velocci made no mistakes with theirs to retain the BIFL Cup and leave the double unconquered for at least another twelve months.

2004 - 2005 – DYNAMO TAKE LEAGUE IN FINAL DAY DRAMA

The BIFL had been around for little more than a decade but technology had changed enormously in that time. From leaving hopeful phone messages with player’s flatmates and families we now all had mobile phones and Internet access, and were organising games via SMS and e-mail, concepts unthinkable in the early days of the league. And with that came the BIFL web site – not the first attempt to produce one, although Steve Kelly’s valiant attempt at a site back in the dark ages went largely unnoticed as so few of us even knew what Internet was back then.
And with it came the BIFL message board, and the chance for ‘Sven’ Varley and Jordi AA to become legends of the new html driven BIFL.
But it was business as usual on the pitch. Cranks, after just one very average season in the BIFL decided to call it a day, but in came two new outfits – although many of their players were familiar faces. Strollers were put together by former Michael Collins veterans Michael Turner and Pep Riba, and proved far better than we had expected, going on to win the second division title and reach the semi finals of the cup. Meanwhile, Futbol Club Independent Catalunya, or Independent for short, or FCIC for even shorter still, were managed by former Storesnay stalwart Raimon Riera. Dynamo changed their name for the fourth season running, now becoming Dynamo Catalonia Today, while Flanns sealed the biggest sponsorship deal to date as they were taken under the wing a budget airline company to become FC Vueling.
The transformation of Anglo American from perennial strugglers to one of the giants of the BIFL continued, and they enjoyed another excellent season, despite the high-profile loss of Fernando Franco to Velocciraptor. The Raptors themselves seemed to be progressing quite nicely, winning ten of their 17 first phase games to comfortably make the ‘Super Six’, and then dropping the bombshell by announcing that, due to lack of players, they were resigning from the League! Many of us were left scratching our heads as to how a team could let itself keel over and drown quite so easily, as the team that had won one league and two cups in its sic years with us left us with the difficult situation of explaining to other first division teams that they now had one less fixture to look forward to.
The other big close-season signing had an indignant Lucas Brown watch in despair as Ersoy Tewfik moved to the Michael Collins. Steve Varley had modelled a new-look squad that ultimately proved the only side capable of pushing the two sides that dominated the season, Metropolitan and Dynamo Catalonia Today.
Metropolitan had lost star striker Bo to regional side Alella, and many had expected things to go sour for Wim and the boys. Of course it didn’t, and they dominated the league, going the whole of the first phase unbeaten. But Gary Moore had put together his strongest Dynamo side ever, and after coming close the year before, were more eager than ever to claim a first league title. The Metropolitan drew with the Michael Collins and then the Anglo American a week later, and by a mathematical miracle, despite not having lost a single game all season, Dynamo could still overtake them when the two side came head to head on the final day.
It was one of the most memorable matches in BIFL history, the occasion helped no end by the amazing set of followers that Dynamo had gathered over the years. In a dramatic 2-0 victory, Dynamo Catalonia Today snatched the title from a team that had led the league from the start.
Dynamo were popular winners, as reflected by the player of the season voting, which saw Felipe Pavez finish top, Enda Meady come third and Gary Moore fourth.
Dynamo’s cup campaign had come to a relatively early end at the hands of Michael Collins in the quarter finals, so the BIFL league and cup double would remain unconquered for at least another season. The Collins progressed to the last four, and once again there was talk of Steve Varley’s semi-final jinx, as his side had lost all eight it had played to date, but the curse was lifted as they marched past the Catalan Knights 2-0 to go to their first final ever!
The Metropolitan were waiting for them, but theirs had not been the smoothest of journeys at all. They had need penalties to beat two of the league’s ‘lesser’ entities, Shamrock and Strollers. The Collins took an early lead, but the game ended 1-1 and went into extra time. And there the Metropolitan proved just that little bit too strong and got some consolation for league disappointment with a 3-1 win. Amazingly, despite regularly being one of the teams to beat in the BIFL, neither as the Metropolitan nor as the Clansman had they ever won the Cup before.
The second and third divisions contained a remarkably similar set of teams to the year before – although it was nice to see that Terrassa were back on track and able to raise an eyebrow or two by ending up fourth in the top flight.
Strollers were never really in major danger of missing out on the second division title, while Enric Sales, after missing out in 2004, finished top scorer in the league for the fourth time in five years – an amazing record.
The third division title went to the Shamrock for the second year in a row, with Flaherty once again having a dreadful regular season and then turning it all around in the second phase. FCUK and Fastnet struggled for yet another miserable season, while FCIC, who had promised so much early on, ultimately had to settle for second to last.
Mu Gung Hwa kept up their record of finishing bottom of the league every season since they joined us in the year 2000, although one win and three draws was their best tally yet, and they did at least, and quite deservedly, win the Fair Play Trophy.
The season ended with a new idea, the BIFL Sevens, played at Sant Marti and something that will hopefully become an annual event. The inaugural edition was won by Metropolitan, beating Mallorca 204 in the final.

2005-2006 METROPOLITAN STORM TO FIFTH TITLE

This was a unique season. After years of play offs, crossovers, splits and point-halving, the BIFL came up with a revolutionary new system. Everybody would just play everybody else in one big league. Some were adverse to the idea that teams would only play each other once, but the cup was expanded to try to compensate.
Dynamo had their annual name-change, becoming Dynamo 23, the Shamrock were sponsorless, and became Blackrock, while the league now had a record twenty teams, with three new entries. Sitges returned after a three-year absence and now played on a first for the BIFL, an artificial pitch, although a lack of communication meant we were often left in the dark as to what the scores of their matches were. The league also welcomed Pechekali, a Catalan side loosely based around the now defunct Cranks, who started their season with seven straight defeats before finally getting off the mark with a 1-1 draw against Vueling.
And then we had the new all Chinese side Dragon United, who turned out to be by far the worst team the league had ever seen, vastly eclipsing the likes of Barcelona Wednesday and Mu Gung Hwa in terms of ineptness, conceding an unthinkable 225 goals in 19 league matches (that’s about 12 a game). Dynamo set a new league record by thrashing them 21-1, and Gerard Vilanova scored no fewer than 12 as they trounced the Chinese 18-2.
West Ham had improved, mainly thanks to Nick Simons raiding the now defunct Velocciraptor squad. Despite the annual rumours that they were folding, Terrassa were still there, but were as irregular as ever and finished in the bottom half of the table, suffering a record 8-0 hiding to the Catalan Knights. The Knights are another side that just never seem to get any kind of consistency going, and they would crash 8-1 to FCUK just two weeks later. FCUK had got off to a dreadful start, but then phoned every name they could find in the new players section of the website and got very lucky indeed. Overnight, the no-hopers were suddenly a very good outside bet for the title.
Of course, the season was not without its controversy, and the big discipline story of the season surrounded Storesnay’s Javi Sanchez. His trial following the outrageous incidents against Mallorca 204 developed into a veritable courtroom drama, with photographic evidence of Ben Bradford’s bitten arm and every witness seeming to have a different story. After doing its best to separate the truth from the lies, the committee slapped a hefty one-year ban on Javi. There was further drama when Independent (who had improved considerably after finishing second bottom the season before) went to Sitges and Alex Corvette received a similar ban for punching a visiting player. Independent said they would never go to Sitges again, and as fate should have it, drew them in the cup. They were eventually persuaded to go, and the rematch went ahead without incident.
Then we also had the usual problems with teams not paying. Mu Gung Hwa and Blackrock were the main culprits, constantly announcing that they were about to make their payments and then not doing so. As a result, both teams found themselves being banned from playing any matches until their fees were paid up.
And the biggest horror of all came in January when the league’s website crashed, and eventually returned only to be four months out of date. Of course, the league having moved into the digital era, nothing was written on paper any more, and that meant four months of results, goalscorers and red and yellow cards were lost forever. So, we had lost all track of which players should be suspended and when, and teams were trusted to suspend their players accordingly, and perhaps more thanks to luck than judgment, the league managed to see itself out without any major controversies.
And that league had developed into a two-horse race once again, with Metropolitan and Dynamo running away from the pack. The two leaders were due to meet three games from the end of the season in a game that would all but decide the title. Dynamo had been beating everybody, except for two draws against the most unlikely of opponents, Flaherty and the Fastnet. Metropolitan, meanwhile, came into that game having won every single game but one, a 2-1 loss to Mallorca 204. That meant the Metros led Dynamo by just the one point, so their head-to-head was as good as a final. It ended 1-1, and both sides went on to win all their remaining games, and thus the Metropolitan were crowned as champions for a record fifth time.
The Cup had become the SALBCN Cup, now sponsored by president Nick Simons’ company. The mammoth group stages produced a fair bit of excitement. The Michael Collins performed miserably and went out early. Metropolitan suffered a rare defeat at the hands of West Ham which meant both sides qualified at the expense of a brave challenge from the Fastnet. And FCUK twice came from behind to beat Vueling on the final day of the group stages to secure a quarter final in dramatic fashion. Pechekali, in their first season, were the surprise qualifiers from that group, but went out to Dynamo in the quarter finals.
The highlight of the quarter finals was the Anglo American once again putting the Metropolitan out of the cup, this time on penalties. The Anglos then went out to FCUK in the semi finals. On the other side of the draw, Dynamo beat West Ham in the semi finals.
It was a classic final. FCUK had never won a major trophy, and several former players were in town for the historic occasion, while Dynamo as usual had plenty of their own supporters. It all finished 2-2 after 90 minutes, before Jorge Santome sealed the winner for FCUK in extra time. Few could begrudge league stalwarts FCUK their hour at last, but it really was tough luck on Dynamo. Amazingly, they had gone unbeaten all season in the league yet had not won the title, and then missed on the Cup too.

Andreas Stave of FCUK was the fairly unanimous BIFL player of the year, while Enric Sales of West Ham was top scorer for an amazing fifth time in six years.

2007-2008 BY GEORGE! THE FIRST EVER BIFL DOUBLE!

The single league system used in 2005-06 turned out to be a one-off, and in true BIFL tradition, the system was given another major makeover for the new season. This time, all the teams were to be divided into two different groups, with the top half of each going on to form the first division in the second stage of the season, and the other teams forming the second division, with half the points from the first phase carrying over to the second. This was complicated enough, and not only did this mean teams halving half points in the second phase, but also presented the problem of teams in the second phase not having played the same teams, or even the same number of matches, which meant all kinds of subtle complexities, and talk of coefficients and the like, generally from teams that realised one system or other might benefit them.
The BIFL also welcomed three new teams. The first of these was formed by former West Ham, Collins and Fastnet man, Andy Mitten, named Manchester La Fianna after some team he likes that wear red. The Fastnet were somewhat peeved that Andy also took the few decent players they had with them, and Mike Roberts was left to rebuild his team from scratch. Richard Doleman came in to lend a hand, and despite a poor start, the Fastnet later managed to beat Terrassa for the first time in 14 seasons, so it cant have been all that bad.
Manchester, with players of the calibre of ex-Fastnet defender Tommy Rogers, ex Collins man Steve Love and Hans Vandamme, a terrific player that would deservedly win the player of the year award, proved to be a very powerful addition to the league indeed, and stayed unbeaten until well after Christmas. But they were not the only strong newcomer. Former Collins player Georgian George, decided to go his own way and form a team made up entirely of Georgians, and called them, to keep the theme going, Saint George. Just how many of the players really were former Dynamo Tbilisi players we may never know, but the fact was that they were a class above most of what the BIFL has to offer. They arrived at games with a large following of fellow Georgians, for whom the excitement often got just too much, and in one game with Metropolitan that involved a misfortunate pitch invasion, there were rumours that, for the first time, the BIFL would be punishing a team for crowd trouble. The other new team were far more discrete. Torpedo del Raval were an all Catalan side that started slowly, but gradually established themselves as one of the leagues middle-ranking outfits.
There were also name changes. The Michael Collins were no more, becoming the Celtic Cross, and Dynamo kept the Dynamo moniker, but added Pizza del Born. But that was not the only major change. We had grass! Barceloneta and Montaesa had both laid down artificial surfaces over the summer, which in theory was wonderful, but also brought headaches for the league committee. The grass pitches were three or four times more expensive, and everybody wanted to get their fair share of games on the plastic, even the 8.00 at night spot didn't seem to matter any more if it meant avoiding the dirt of Vallbona, Sant Marti and this season's new venue, Canyelles. The latter proved the least popular pitch in BIFL history, and was dumped after a matter of weeks.
The temptation of grass was just too much for some teams, and it became traditional for several sides to move their dirt fixtures to plastic, and a Manchester v Celtic Cross game became the BIFLs first Friday night match.
The season began with the Metropolitan collecting the first silverware with a 2-1 win against FCUK in the Super Cup, but the good times were coming to an end for the Metros. Theirs was to be one of the poorest defences of a BIFL title ever (Mallorca put eight past them in one game) as they only just squeezed into the first division at the very last moment, but were far too many points adrift to have any serious hopes of winning it. Even more surprising, the other half of the duopoly of recent seasons, Dynamo, also had a very average season, spending much of it propping up the first division table.
It looked like the Georgians were the side to beat, but FCUK showed it could be done with a 3-2 win, although it would be several months before they lost again, in an epic match with Mallorca 204 coming back from 4-1 down to make it 4-4, only to concede a goal in the dying seconds.
It proved to be the tightest race in years. Manchester and Saint George were going strong, but FCUK (with Carles Garriga developing an impressive habit of scoring from overhead kicks) and West Ham also spent weeks on top as the lead changed hands on an almost weekly basis, and the Celtic Cross and a surprisingly strong Pechekali were also hanging on in there. Nick Simons was so sure that the title would come down to a last day battle between his West Ham and the George that he specifically asked for that game to be played on the last day of the season. The Hammers eventually finished seventh.
But as usual the league also produced its fair share of controversy. Mike ONeill, the leagues longest serving referee, finally decided he had enough of the increasingly fouler atmosphere and hung up his whistle for the very last time. The Sitges ref also decided enough was enough, while one of the newer additions, Roland, found himself being pummelled repeatedly in the head by Santi of Mu Gung Hwa, who was banned for two years as a result. Then we had the entire Storesnay team storming off the pitch in Sitges fun and games as usual in the BIFL.
No BIFL season would be complete without a few games being won for odd reasons in the despachos, and this year it was Flaherty, Redstars and Anglo American who all lost their games 3-0 for fielding suspended players. The Anglo American case was especially dramatic, because Alex Perez had known perfectly well he couldn't play, and thought he'd get away with passing himself off as Alex Calvo instead.
There were protests from the AA that all they were trying to do was make a fair match of it, and they were hammered 10-0 by the Celtic Cross anyway, but what it did suggest was that the decano of the BIFL, and the Teachers League too, was in a very poor state indeed. It became less and less sure whether they would even be able to see the season out.
As the season progressed, the challengers started falling by the wayside, and it all came down to a two-horse rush for the tape involving FCUK, chasing their first ever league title, and the wonderboys from Saint George. With just three weeks to go, the two sides met in a potential league decider, the George two points ahead. St George won that one, 2-0, but FCUK still had a game in hand, which they won in emphatic style, 7-0, against the Celtic Cross. Left relying on the Cross or West Ham to do them a favour and take some points of the George on the last two weekends, FCUK could sense things were slipping away from them, and in fact, a week later they were held 4-4 by Metropolitan (the Metros getting last minute penalty) and St Georges 4-1 win over the Celtic Cross at Sant Marti was enough to win them the title. For a team to come from nowhere and win the league was nothing new (the Clansman, Velocciraptor and Collins had all done it before) but surely the Georgians werent going to have the audacity to become the first team to win the double? They eased their way into the semi finals with a 6-2 win over Mallorca 204, and then handed Steve Varley and his Celtic Cross their umpteenth semi final defeat to qualify to meet a Metropolitan side that had found its form again in the last few months of the season. It was a classic final, with goals going in at either end, and eventually won 5-3 by the Georgians. BIFL traditionalists looked on in disbelief. The fact that nobody had ever won the double was one of our little curiosities we have loved to cherish. But now it had been done, and in impressive style, and it least within BIFL circles, we all now know where the little former Soviet state of Georgias flag looks like.
The second division, meanwhile, failed to produce much excitement. From the start it was a two-horse race between Terrassa and Strollers, and Terrassa eventually sewed up the title with an eight point advantage.
The real talking point came at the other end, where Dragon United actually won a game! After letting in double figures on an almost weekly basis, fellow Asian side Mu Gung Hwa became their first victims, losing 4-1. A few weeks later they were back to their old tricks, conceding 20 goals against Vueling, and then came one of the most extraordinary performances in BIFL history, when the Strollers beat the Dragon 18-0, and Pep Riba set an incredible record by scoring 17 of them! There was much grumbling that Peps goals in games like that hardly made him a worthy winner of the Pichichi, and the committee was pressured to hand a trophy to first division top scorer Juan Miguel Lozano of Pechekali as well, although others cited this as a lack of respect for Pep, who has always been a consistent goalscorer, no matter what the conditions. His 17 goals against the Chinese were put into something of a perspective a week later when Dragon United won yet again, this time 6-4 in Sitges.
The Dragon also collected the Fair Play Trophy once again, Hans Vandamme of Manchester was voted player of the season (edging out Georgian players finishing second, third, and fourth), while there was one new award, for manager of the season, and its first winner was Karl Schulte of FCUK. There was also a special award for outgoing referee Mike ONeill.

2007 - 2008 - NO STROLL FOR NEW CHAMPIONS

The 16th edition of the BIFL proved to be one of the closest and most exciting in history. The pre-season meeting produced the usual surprises, this time being the decision to stick with the five-subs rule, but to allow substituted players to come back onto the pitch if they wanted. Chaos was predicted, but the idea actually proved a surprisingly resounding success.
There were also the usual changes in membership. One new team joined the league, Pilote Urbain, our first all-French club, while the historic Anglo Amnerican were on the point of folding due to lack of players, but were saved when agreeing to merger with the Catalan Knights, and a new name – the Anglo Knights. The Fastnet now became the Michael Collins, no less than the third team in the BIFL to have used that name, and when Dominic Hasson joined them mid-season, he had the unique distinction of having played for all three!
The Georgians were back to defend their titles, now calling themselves Iveria, but had lost several players and simply weren’t the force they used to be, crashing 4-0 to the Celtic Cross in the first game. They were on the verge of failing to qualify for the first division, losing 3-0 in a head-to-head with fellow top flight aspirants Torpedo before staging an incredible comeback to win 4-3. But it was an ugly affair, especially an incident involving Juan Marqués, and the league went as far as voting on whether or not to kick them out of the league. The Georgians survived that vote, but seemed to have lost interest in the competition, failed to pay their fees and mysteriously vanished mid-season.
There were also fun and games with the Sitges referee García Paredes. Dynamo’s visit saw a bizarre five-minute period in which five players were red carded for doing apparently nothing. The video was uploaded onto YouTube, and apparently ended up creating a debate among members of the New Zealand referees council! García Paredes was up to his tricks again as the Metropolitan met the Strollers, getting so carried away with his yellow cards that he even booked Steve Varley, who had nothing to do with either team! More refereeing outrage in a West Ham game, when it was none other than the league president, Nick Simons, who lost his marbles and stormed onto the pitch to have a go at referee Isaac.
And then there was the payment crisis, as once again teams failed to meet the deadlines and were forbidden from playing games because of it. But whereas in the past these teams had generally been those languishing at the bottom of the second division, this time it was second division title hopefuls Flaherty and first division powerhouse Metropolitan that were the culprits. Both sides protested their innocence, but the committee refused to budge. The decision denied Flaherty of vital second division points, and meant Torpedo came out top in a tight title race that had also seen Pilote Urbain and Terrassa involved until the end.
The first division was just as competitive. With just a few weeks to go, Dynamo, Strollers, FCUK, Manchester and the Celtic Cross all still had realistic hopes of winning the title, and of the five, only Dynamo was a previous champion. Strollers led the way, but were considered the most surprising survivor, many putting their leadership down to the fact that they had yet to play any of their main rivals.
But Strollers beat FCUK to as good as end that teams chances, and a week later it was FCUK who dashed Manchester’s own hopes with a 4-2 victory. Was anybody going to stop the Strollers? Sitges were bottom of the table, so there was little hope that they would do them any damage, but in a classic game, they were holding Strollers to 1-1 and got a late penalty. It looked like curtains for the Strollers, one of the most veteran sides the league has ever seen, but the penalty was missed, they scored a winner in injury time and stayed top of the league.
It couldn’t have been closer. On the penultimate weekend, Dynamo and the Cross met each other, and both needed to win to have any chance of winning the title – the draw would mean the Strollers had won it anyway. It was 1-1 in injury time, the result that neither team wanted, when Juanito scored a historic goal in the very last seconds to set us up for a last-day title decider between Dynamo and the Strollers.
That game turned out to be something of a non-event. The Strollers did indeed stroll it, 4-0. One of the most veteran teams the league has ever seen had played some delightful football on their way to the crown, and it meant winners medals at last for two men, Michael Turner and Jimmy Byrn, who had been in the competition since the very first season way back in 1992-93. Dynamo, however, were anything but impressed, having heard a rumour that the Strollers had played that last game with a number of ringers drafted in from outside.
The cup also produced some memorable games, not least Mallorca’s game with Pilote Urbain, which ended level and saw both teams having to beg the referee to stay around for the penalty shootout. Mallorca won and met Anglo Knights in the semis, who had put out league leaders Strollers in the previous round. The Anglo Knights made it into the final, where they met Celtic Cross, who had beaten league rivals Dynamo in yet another scintillating clash between the two.
It was a duel of two historic sides. The Anglos and the Cross (despite name changes) were two of just three founder members still in the BIFL, although it was the latter who cruised it 6-2. Steve Varley had finally won himself a trophy after countless close finishes, and the man he had to thank was Georgian George, who posted yet another incredible performance in the final, and was rewarded with the player of the year trophy in his final year in the league.
The end of season gala turned into a Steve Varley festival, the Leeds man being the emotional recipient of the manager of the year award, while Juan Miguel Lozano of Pechekali collected the top scorer trophy, and Fèlix Setmenat was named goalkeeper of the year.
The season ended in its now traditional fashion with the BIFL Sevens, won by the Metropolitan, who beat Terrassa in the final, although there was not much of a trophy for them, Cross keeper Rutger having dropped it once and then, in a vain attempt to fix the damage, dropping it yet again and leaving it in pieces.

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