Hundreds of footballers converged at the Molyneux sports ground in Alexandra over the weekend. Typically the sun shines and there is a real party atmosphere as the summer begins with a great festival of football. Three tournaments take place simultaneously over the several, near full size football pitches. The open grade men’s, ladies and men’s masters have teams from as far afield as Christchurch and Invercargill, all competing for bragging rights and trophies. Four teams from Wānaka travelled over to play the 'beautiful game' in the long running, well organised and officiated tournament, on the pristine turf at Alex. 

On Saturday each team played five games to qualify for the next day’s finals, with the exception of the masters (who are too old to take the excitement of a knockout competition) and play a round-robin style mini-league. They only conceded one goal over the two days of football and won all but one of their games to retain their title for the fourth consecutive season. 

The ladies had a similar run, with four wins and a draw in the qualifiers, then winning the semi and the exciting final to also retain their title, also for the fourth consecutive time. 

In the highly competitive men’s grade, two teams from Wānaka competed and qualified for Sunday’s knockout. Wānaka Braves unfortunately lost in round 16 to local rivals and eventual finalists, Queenstown Lakes. They meet their match in the final against the Wānaka As. A very strong performance from the As completed the clean sweep as they won the game 4 - 1. They have now won the tournament three times in the last four years!

An amazing weekend of football.