The
official beginning of the new Football season 2015-2016 for the newly founded
St. Panteleimon FC had happened on Wednesday 12th August 2015, when
Fr. Anastasios D. Salapatas blessed the Team and its sport facilities in
Harrow.
The
Blessing was attended by many Players of our Team, our Manager Gary Karsa, the
Chairman George Frangeskou, Committee Members, Sponsors, and others. Mr. Tony
Kleanthous, Chairman of the Barnet FC, whose facilities will be our home
ground, attended the ceremony and gracefully greeted our Players!
Fr.
Anastasios had written and read the following prayer for our Team:
“Heavenly
King, who through Your Holy Cross and the Glorious Resurrection smashed the
devil and having abolished the death gave life to us, You granted health and
strength to our body and healed our illnesses, and You have also provided those
we struggle the good fight and with honesty complete their way with the crown
of victory.
You,
our Lord, bless this Football Team, its Managers, its Committee, its Sponsors
and those who assist, and above all its Players to receive strength with the
force of Your power, in order to exercise their bodies and souls and worthily
achieve the prize of victory.
Make
these sports facilities an arena of noble competition and legitimate exercise,
and to all those who practise sports here, send Your blessing.
Thus,
we beseech You, make us worthy of Your calling and grant us health and
prosperity making us good imitators of our Patron Saint, Saint Panteleimon, the
Great Athlete and Healer, who fought the good fight and was glorified by You.
For
You are a merciful God Who loves mankind, and to You we send up Glory, to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and to the
ages of ages. Amen”.
At
the end of the ceremony Fr. Anastasios greeted everyone with the following
words:
“Welcome
and a big thank you to everyone for coming here tonight and being a part at
this historic moment of the official beginning of our St. Panteleimon Football
Team.
This
is a new endeavour, which has at its centre the Youth of our Society and the
Young Adults. It is a place and a space for all of you to compete, to
socialise, to develop your personalities and to grow, both bodily as well as
spiritually.
Our
local Church and Community of St. Panteleimon by establishing a Football Team
is following the tradition of many other Parishes around the country, which had
established Football Teams in the past. From what I know most of the major
Teams have been established by Churches. If I am not mistaken the first
Football Team in England was Derby County FC and it was established by its
local Church.
The
name of our Team is SAINT PANTELEIMON, which is the name of our local Church. I
am going to give you today a small icon of St. Panteleimon, for you to see who
is the Saint that you play for, and also to pray to him when needed.
I
would also like to offer our thanks and gratitude to Mr. Kleanthous for being
so open and welcoming to us, in these excellent sport facilities, together with
his staff here. We all wish you Mr. Kleanthous a great and victorious season at
Barnet FC this season.
I
cannot thank enough our First Team Manager, Gary Karsa, the best man for the
job, a man of Premiership status, who is respected by all of us, especially by
his Players.
I
am Indebted to the Chairman, Mr. George Frangeskou, the Committee, our main
Sponcors, Savvas Andreou and Panayiotis Argyrou, as well as the rest of the
sponsors.
Above
all I would like to welcome with an open heart, with friendship and love our
Players and to thank you all for your commitment and dedication.
I
really look forward to the start of our season, and I hope and pray that we
shall have a successful year, with many joys and victories.
God
bless us all !”
Then
he offered an icon of St. Panteleimon to Mr. Kleanthous. All Players and all
those attending came forward, kissed the Holy Cross and were blessed with the
Holy Water.
The
following Sunday, 16th August 2015, we had the first ever game of
our Team. It was a friendly game, against Pantel FC, a colleague Team from KOPA
League. We won 4-0! The best start we could've ever dreamed for!
It
was obviously quite a stressful game as it was the first ever time that those
Players had played a competitive game together. At the first half the score was
1-0. The score remained unchanged until mid - second half, when our Players
felt quite strong and in great shape and form, moved forward the scored three
more goals.
The
goal scorers were: Demetris Parpottas, Alex Dimgkioka, Nick Salapatas and
Costas Mina! Our talented goal-keeper Antony Ioannou had kept a clean sheet!
It
is worth noting that numerous supporters had gathered to watch the match and encourage
our Players, by chanting their names!
We’ve
started our history with a victory!!! We really look forward to a great and successful
season!
