The brighter side of the beautiful game, as pals honour fall victim, Max O'Connell with memorial five-a-side football tournament
Thursday, 16th August 2012
Top: The memorial five -a-side football tournament
Bottom: Max’s Hampstead School pals who this year won the tournament (picture by Hannah Boulton)
Published: 16 August, 2012
by TOM FOOT
THE humility shown by athletes competing in the Olympic Games has cast a long shadow over the super-rich footballers preparing to kick-start the new Premier League season. But a brighter side of the beautiful game was on display at the Max O’Connell Memorial Cup on Saturday.
The five-a-side tournament has been played each year in memory of the former Hampstead School pupil since he died in a freak accident in 2006.
More than 100 people – including teams representing West Hampstead, South Kilburn, Kilburn Grange and Hampstead School “Old Boys” – turn out each year to ensure Max is not forgotten.
Max’s dad Seamus said: “Max was football mad and had a large number of friends, from his time in Queen’s Park and Hampstead School, then from Newcastle University, and, finally, from the university’s year abroad in Cadiz.”
Max, who lived in Queen’s Park, was just 23 when he died after falling from an ocean wall in Cadiz in Spain. He was studying for a Spanish and film studies degree at Newcastle University.
The summer cup – at the Linford Christie Stadium, Wormwood Scrubs – has become a fixture in the five-a-side footballing calendar.
