Last weekend, 12th to 14th May 2023, GB Men competed in the Lithuania Blind Sport Federation’s International Goalball Tournament ‘For Vytautas the Great Vilnius LIONS Club Cup’ in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In a competitive tournament, GB fought hard against some of the world’s top goalball teams including Japan and Lithuania who earned medals in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Faye Dale, Head Coach for GB Men at Goalball UK said “The squad is constantly improving and it’s really pleasing to see we have maintained our performances from the IBSA European B Championships in 2022.
“Leading in the bronze medal game against Ukraine at half time showed this. Unfortunately, we were beaten at the end, but the important thing now is that we keep working hard and take this confidence into the World Games in Coventry this summer.
The weekend delivered great performances from the squad against some world class opposition, we should definitely be proud! We now have plenty to focus on in the coming months.”
GB’s top goalscorer for the weekend was David Scott with 20 goals, with Josh Murphy scoring 13. Chris Colbert scored 5 and Stuart Hudson scored 4.
Goalball UK would like to thank the Lithuanian Blind Sports Federation for their support which allowed us to attend the tournament and congratulate them for putting on a great event.
Friday
Group Games
GB 11 – Uzbekistan 1
GB 3 – Japan 9
GB 4 – Ukraine 14
Saturday
Group Games
Spain 7 – GB 10
GB 6 – Lithuania 11
Semi Final
Japan 12 – GB 2
Sunday
Bronze Medal
Ukraine 11 – GB 6
Stephen Newey qualifies as IBSA Level 2 Referee
Congratulations also goes to Goalball UK’s Stephen Newey who attended the IBSA Level 2 Referee Clinic during the tournament and qualified.
To become a Level 2 goalball referee, Stephen had to referee eight games at one or more local or international tournaments and referee a minimum of four games at one or more international tournament (total 12 games).
