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30 Jul 2010 PAUL FAIRCLOUGH IN SEARCH OF A SCHOLAR
Barnet captain Anwar Uddin, the first British Asian to captain a side in the top four divisions, presented the trophy to the winners of the hugely successful Asian Tournament organised by Paul Fairclough at The Hive on Saturday, July 24 2010.
A total of 36 teams competed in the nine and a half hour tournament and the winners were KKYW, made up of local Asian lads from the Middlesex area with a captain who lives in Camrose Avenue just along from the Bees' training ground.
Each member of the winning team received a ticket for England's home game against Hungary next month ... and will also receive a training session from the Barnet coaching staff.
A dream squad was selected and they will play a behind-closed doors game against a Barnet X1 to showcase their skills to manager Mark Stimson and his staff.
The manager, accompanied by first team coach Michael Stone, assistant manager Scott Barrett and Uddin were at The Hive in the morning before the pre-season friendly against Charlton Athletic at Underhill.
The competing teams for The Hive Asian Tournament Trophy came from as far afield as Birmingham, Nottingham and the Kent coast; six groups of six played 10 games within their group, playing their group members twice.
The winners and runners-up were joined in the last sixteen by the four best runners up. The tournament was fiercely contested throughout the hot day with the football being equally as hot.
Paul Fairclough said that this inaugural event will continue next year - "hopefully both the Asian footballing population and Barnet Football Club can benefit from this untapped source of talent".
The tournament came about because he looked back over his career and realised that he could not think of one Asian footballer he had managed over 16 years.
"I decided to start doing something about it", he said. "I thought 'I'm going to find an Asian footballer to come into Barnet's first team. And I decided to hold a soccer tournament and find myself a scholar. Or two or three".
