Santa, Amigo's and Amiga's,

To be honest its rather easy to organize a soccer tournament
during the summer of Shanghai as you are more or less
guaranteed a perfect weather condition and everybody loves
to play football under a nice summer breeze.

To get a Santa Cup organized is a different ball game all
together as you never know what the weather condition will
be and how do you know that when its freezing cold the
players will still turn up to play or not........
So my first problem started when I went to the Xinjiang market on
Saturday  to look for the "Santa Hats" for all the players
who would turn up in order to appreciate the fact that they
came despite the horrible weather ! Last year I found one
shop selling Christmas items but this year no matter where I
looked I couldn't find it any more. "Sir you want rolex ?"
"Sir you want hand bag ?" "Sir you need sun-glasses ?" "Sir
you need shoes cheap cheap cheap ?" I knew I was in trouble
as I didn't know what was a "Santa Hat" in Chinese and how
the hell I could explain them I had the Santa Cup in Green
City 20 hours from now. I screamed as loud as I could "
SAAANNNNTTTAAAA CCCCCUUUPPPP III NNNNEEEDDD SSSSAAANNNTTTAAA HHHAATTTSSS !"
No reaction at all just but some people were offering me
free "Henry Hand of God Shirts" but it was the time to
change my strategy so I ran away and my last hope was the
Carrefour !
God Bless I found a Christmas section and indeed
a few hats. I approached the young girl dressed as a Chinese
Santa and ordered 150 Santa Hats but she said these 10 were
the last pieces "Mei you" she screamed, what you mean "mei
you" ? This is for the Santa Cup and this is the Carrefour
right get me the bloody hats right now !! It seemed to work
as suddenly from all kind of secret places she found me the
"Hats" and although I was a bit embarrassed at the cashier
as they were scanning Hat by Hat so there was this hugh line
of angry Chinese people behind me wondering what was going
on with the Hats...!
Talking about the weather it started to rain exactly at 8 o
clock on Saturday evening and  this is the worst case
scenario for an organizer as how the hell you know when it
will stop. Just imagine we had to cancel the tournament and
I was stuck with 150 Santa Hats.......! I woke up three
times during the night and to my horror it was still
raining. Where the hell was Santa to help me out here, just
imagine all the angry SPL players when I had to tell them it
was cancelled while they came all the way from Puxi !
So when I opened the curtains on Sunday morning it was grey,
cold and drizzling and horrible weather and suddenly at that
moment "I Got The Message" from above that this is "The
Santa Cup", if you love the game of football and if you love
the SPL you show up always there is nothing which will stop
you !
So it happened that we had we had a fantastic tournament
with some teams showing up with all their members like the
Flamenkos (21 players !!), Galacticos (18 players), ERS and
Super 48 (full squads)
That was impressive and the fact that during the whole day
we had no serious injuries or red cards and the fact that
all the time players would shake hands after fouls against
their opponents as they knew its was dangerous on the wet
pitch and nobody had an intention to hurt each other.

So maybe that's what Christmas is all about accepting each
other as friend no matter what the circumstances are. So in
that sense I think the Santa Cup is special and we will
continue to organizing it no matter how many "Santa Hats" we
need to buy in the end. !

This year the Hawks won the Cup again but it was a penalty
shoot out against the Galacticos after the final ended in a
1-1 draw. The Party at the New Latina Restaurant at Lui Jia
Zui after the final only reconfirmed that our spirits were
high on that bloody cold day in December !

We wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Healthy/Happy New
Year on behalf of the SPL Committee ! Cheers / Freek /
Frederik / Yamamda-san !!