You thought our season was over, didn’t you? Not quite. We’ve been sending some of the young lions over to Hong Kong each summer for at least the last 8 years to participate in the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens tournament and it’s something we’ve had a fair amount of success in.

Earlier today a team that included Nathan Delfouneso, Marc Albrighton and Ciaran Clark won the trophy for a 5th time, beating Glasgow Rangers 3-2 in the final. Unfortunately, information is a little scant – it was August last year before the official site mentioned last summer’s event had taken place… in May!  Hopefully that was simply because we didn’t win and they’ll pay it some attention this week.

What I can tell you is that we previously lifted the trophy in 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2008 with Jonathan Brewer, Stephen Cooke, Zoltan Stieber and Barry Bannan being named the respective Player of the Tournament in each of those years.  Gabby Agbonlahor won the Player of the Tournament award in 2006 despite losing to Urawa Red Diamonds in the final.

If I come across anything else I’ll try to get it posted.  In the mean time, here’s the young lions’ record in the 2010 competition:-

Group Stage

• Aston Villa 4 Yau Yee League Select 0
• Aston Villa 2 Eastleigh FC 0
• Aston Villa 0 Sunderland 0

Quarter Finals

• Tai Po 0 Sunderland 3
• Aston Villa 3 Ajax 1
• Rangers 2 Celtic 0
• Birmingham City 2 West Ham United 3

Semi Finals

• Sunderland 0 Glasgow Rangers 3
• Aston Villa 3 West Ham United 0

Final

• Rangers 2 Aston Villa 3

Well done lads, winning is a great habit to adopt!