St. Panteleimon FC - Blessing & First Game

The official beginning of the new Football season 2015-2016 for the newly founded St. Panteleimon FC had happened on Wednesday 12^th 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, 16^th 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!

St. Panteleimon FC Logo

Our new Community Football Team, called St. Panteleimon FC, has now got a Logo.

The actual Logo is based on a Fr. Anastasios Salapatas’ idea. The motto “Faith First” was suggested by the footballer Nick Salapatas and all the artistic work was done by a dedicated member of the Community Mrs. Evie Efthimiou, whom we would like to thank very much.

The final and official Logo of our St. Panteleimon FC contains the following details:

1). The name of the Team at the centre.

2). The colours of the Byzantine Empire (purple), of Greece (blue) and of Cyprus (yellow and light bronze).

3). The motto FAITH FIRST, with reference to our Christian Faith as well as to the faith in victory that the players should always have.

4). The symbol of the Holy Cross (referring to our Christian identity).

5). The emblem of our Nation (top left).

6). The ancient column (referring to our Classical Civilization of both Greece and Cyprus).

7). The emblem of the Byzantine Empire, with the ball at its centre (referring to our Greek Orthodox Civilization in connection with football).

8). The year of founding -2015- on the top of the column.

This Logo is to be used for all purposes, in relation to the operation of St. Panteleimon FC.

St. Panteleimon FC

Today it was a very beatufil and sunny day in London. It was also an historic day for our Community. A Football Team has been established with the name of “St. Panteleimon FC”! It will compete at the Cypriot Football League of London, called KOPA!

This endeavour will bring together many people who love the “Beautiful Game”, especially the young generation!

We look forward to welcome all young men and ladies who would like to assist in many different ways, either by playing in the Team, or helping to manage it, or assisting in organising the administration.

We are honoured to have Gary Karsa as the Manager. He was No. 2 Manager at Aston Villa (English Premiership) until recently.

George Frantzeskou will be the Chairman, Chris Andreou the Vice-Chairman, Soteris Merentitis the Public Relations Officer, and Dr. Serafim Kiriakidis & Andreas Hadjithemistou will be members of the Committee.

Savvas Andreou & Panayiotis Argyrou will be the senior sponsors.

We invite all those who would like to play a part in this new and inspiring endeavour to come forward and talk to our Parish Priest Fr. Anastasios, who had actually initiated this whole process.