Following the Amazing Losers game at Leyton Orient (May 23rd) and the MAN v FAT Awards (May 24th), attentions will turn to the MAN v FAT National XIs Final on May 31st.
The XIs competition is fiercely contested, with the silverware that awaits being highly coveted by those who participate.
This year sees two time winners MAN v FAT Preston back once again as they look to make it a threepeat. However, this year they’ll take on new opposition in MAN v FAT Millwall, who’ve come through this year’s Southern Section to reach the final two.
Preston manager John McNamara is looking forward to the match, due to be played at Bury FC’s Gigg Lane Stadium.
He said: “We are over the moon to reach the Final for an unprecedented third time. We sat down after last season to discuss what had worked for us and what we felt as a management team we could improve and we wanted to develop a new style of play. We were fortunate to have a couple of new additions to the squad this season to give us some diversity and what is really pleasing is more than a few of the existing squad have really kicked on with their weight loss and fitness and that has definitely helped.
“We have always been known for being a physical team with determination and we have tried to change it up with a different approach this year, which is working well for us, we know the competition is tough and we know that most of the teams we play know our players and how we set up so we wanted to give them a different challenge and it’s worked so far at least.”
Going into games as the current holders means that you’re there to be shot at, but John has been happy with how his players have applied themselves this season.
Despite injuries to five key players, the team have persisted and now find themselves on the brink of glory once again.
“Every year is different and this has been a difficult year for a few different reasons,” John added.
“We had a great pre-season and started the Group stages really well, winning our first 5 games. However, heading into the Christmas period we suffered some pretty catastrophic injuries to 5 of our first team players.
“We have never faced Millwall and only yesterday was my first conversations with Bradley their manager, we had messaged each other on WhatsApp and then Brad called me and we had nearly 3 hours on the phone and got on like a house on fire! I love their story and the passion and feel for them having to travel all the way up north for the Final, but he understands we had to do the same last year.
“Any team that gets past West Brom are going to be good and we have a lot of respect for the job Brad has done with the team. We are really looking forward to the final as it’s a new team to us and we are sure it will be a cracker whoever wins.”
Whilst the MAN v FAT official XIs programme comes to a close after the final in Bury, HQ are keen that clubs still get to play fixtures between each other in the future.
And John says the lads are keen to go out on a high against their London opponents: “As we were only formed in September 2021, we missed the first tournament. As a result, we spent nearly a full year playing friendlies against other MAN v FAT sides, Mental Health teams and also some Sunday League teams and we went into every game with a desire and passion to win.
“We learnt a lot over that first year and I really believe this put us in a great position to attack the National Tournament in 2022/23. Although we lost our first game to Salford and then drew the next one with Stockport, which meant we needed to win our last 4 Group games to qualify.
“We did that and the rest is history as they say!”