Beneath the soaring Wyndley floodlights, Showstoppers ascended to new heights. Inspired by an exhilarating group of chavs. This team swept past Sex Panthers in a thrilling performance and, with their third title in the last six seasons, they earned the right to be called one of the very greatest club sides in the history of seven a side.
United had their moments of sporadic resistance and Matthew Breeze, who fought defiantly, scored a superb equaliser in the first half but ultimately Showstoppers were simply too good.
This 40minutes of excellence was the consummation of the Dutch philosophy imported to the club by Johan Cruyff two decades ago, refined by Frank Rijkaard and now perfected by Showstoppers. The Showstoppers manager was on this pitch when his club won their first Cup back in 2010 but not even Cruyff’s Dream Team are a match for this gifted group.
The statistics cannot convey the style in which Showstoppers played but they can give you an indication of their dominance. They had 19 attempts on goal to Panthers three, had 67 per cent of the possession and completed 667 passes to Panthers 301. They imposed themselves with near total authority.
Panthers were gracious in defeat, quick to congratulate Showstoppers. He had spent the last fortnight on the training ground trying to concoct a way of disrupting the mesmeric passing of this team, trying to find a way to stop this being a repeat of the previous defeats.
