Aussie News - Issue 22 - August 2006
Captain Shaw and his Diplomatic Dream Team
Captain of the MFA team, Patrice Cure (l)
accepts the winner's trophy from
Diplomatic team captain Stuart Shaw (r)
As a final sporting swan song, Captain Shaw was the Captain and Coach of the Diplomatic Dream Team in a final football match on Friday 18 August against a Ministry of Foreign Affairs team led by Ambassador Patrice Cure.
The game, conceptualized and materialised through the hard work of Patrice Cure and Stuart Shaw, was hotly contested, and the final score probably didn’t do justice to the closeness of the encounter between the two sides.
Captain Shaw’s team was strong on enthusiasm, but perhaps a little less hard wired into the intricacies of Football tactics (our Captain aside) than our opposition. With our team comprising representatives from the US, British, Egyptian and French Embassies, as well as a sound Aussie High Commission component, we knew Patrice had thrown down the gauntlet from the outset when all members of the other side turned up wearing the same coloured vests. Another challenge was trying to locate the football after it had passed the goalie at the northern stand end (the area looked remarkably like a rubbish dump).
Notwithstanding these challenges, football was the winner on the day (as was the Ministry team). We look forward to future opportunities to wrest back the prestigious Diplomatic Trophy.