Full Christmas Party Photo Album on this link

Merry Christmas to everyone who attended the party, as BEFC's biggest bash was held at the Embassy's newly redesigned Duke bar. BEFC guests arrived to don the traditional Santa Hat and get warmed up from drinks ready at the open bar. Members caught up with each other, mingle and finally meet the members of the newly formed Ladies team who put in a fine attendance.

After last years epic feast Fernando once again was our Culinary Santa cooking up Christmas traditional joy. With roast Turkeys, roasted potatoes, bacon wrapped sausages, stuffing, brussel sprouts and gravy, everyone was beaming and heartily tucking into the food. 

With everyone filled up and well lubricated it was time for the BEFC Player Awards 2016 and Golden Boot and then Captain's Awards.

Earlier in the month an email went out to all members of BEFC to nominate their top 3 players for both TML and Futsal. The criteria was entirely what it meant to them. With all the nominations in they were calculated with a 1st equal to 1, 2nd equal to .5 and 3rd equal to .25.

Golden Boot
The 2015 Golden Boot went to Kentaro Takahashi with a total of 9 goals. This year's Golden Boot Ken improved on that tally with a total of 15 (mostly scored just this season!).
2nd place was Alo Säkk with 10 and 3rd James Pounder with 9. This year's contest for the boot has been heated up by the strike-force partnership of Alo and Ken, with BEFC having scored more goals in the league after 7 games than the entire tally of last season with 31 goals. The same time last season BEFC had only scored 13.
We've determined that Ken has also been boosted by making sure all match balls adhere to Takahashi Standard Pressure. Ensuring the correct air pressure of any ball used allows Ken's extremely technical abilities to reach their maximum potential. Therefore accompanying the Golden Boot Ken was presented with the TSP guage so ensure standards are upheld in all competitive matches.
 

Futsal Player of the Year
Futsal now has two new managers, Mark and Seth and since last year BEFC have increased its success by coming 3rd in the AMIA futsal cup in June, retaining the Embassy Friendly Cup and then making a concerted effort to claim the AMIA cup in November coming first and undefeated, no goals against.

Futsal Player of the Year - Arthur Villanueva
Runner Up - Alo Säkk
Runner Up - Mark Kuroda

BEFC TML Player of the Year Award
The original BEFC award for the TML Elevens team. In other years the voting has been widespread but this year there was a clear outright winner with 41% of the votes.

BEFC Player of the Year - Alo Säkk
Runner Up - Ewan Walton
Runner Up - Kentaro Takahashi

Congratulations to Alo, who joined midway through the second half of last season. A captain of his own team before moving to Japan, he knows well the challenges and inspires players around him with his positive attitude, relentless effort and massive commitment to ther team. Congratulations to Arthur, a regular at futsal and futsal competitions, the ferocious beast in the defence with smooth and silky play bringing it forward and a super friendly nice guy made him the clear peoples' champion in the voting.

Finally there was one last award based on our Adecco Man of the Match Awards, renamed to Adecco BEFC Most Valuable Player 2016

Adecco BEFC Most Valuable Player 2016
Each match and competition the Captain, Manager and Vice Captains decide a Man of the Match, based on their own judgement and the opinions of the rest of the team who care to give them.This year the Adecco Award wanted to recognise the concept 'Man of the Match' at a club level. A person whose ability, effort, teamwork and determination stands out.

Adecco BEFC MVP 2016 - Natalie Guerrero:
One of BEFC's ongoing missions has been to start a Ladies Club within BEFC. It has been tried but each time obstacles have prevented the club to get up and running and fully formed.
Natalie Guererro took on this challenge in August and due to her great efforts BEFC Ladies now is running regularly on Thursdays, with the Ladies team also entering the MIFA Futsal competition and Onsen Remembers cup. BEFC Ladies are already matching general futsal for attendance numbers and BEFC expanding and growing with the Ladies part of the club is fantastic for BEFC as a football club. This is all down to Natalie and she thoroughly deserves the Adecco Award for BEFC Most Valuable Players 2016.

Runner Up - Kaz Fushimi for his Vice Captain duties and arranging the pre-season trainings and friendlies
Runner Up - Mark Kuroda for taking over Futsal management, as well as Captaining futsal competitions and 7s.

Managers and Captain's Awards

As the club has continued to grow and evolve the Captain's Award format in a way was scrapped, and a new set of Awards presented by effectively the Captains of the club's Member groups

BEFC Player Awards

• The  Captain's Allstar Award -  Accepting a nomination to become a Vice Captain, Kaz Fushimi immediately made a huge impact, not only from his play on the field, and Captain-ing in 7s tournaments but organising pre-season trainings and friendlies in the build up to BEFC's highly successful season. Heavily involved and a keen tactician, Kaz has been hugely influential in boosting the club ever higher not just in the conquest of TML Division 2 this season, but all round to being a bigger better club.

• The Manager's Award - At the AGM Mark Kuroda and Seth Reisner took on the challenge of becoming BEFC Futsal managers and their double act has been hugely successful, taking over the reigns from Manager Keith Crowley, and saving Captain Ben Palmer from covering Keith when absent. Not only that, but they have been successful in fielding and managing the teams for futsal competitions. We hope Mark and Seth will continue on to make the Futsal Club their own.
   
• The TML Unsung Hero Award - Vice Captain's Ewan and Kaz presented Go Oomichi with the TML Unsung Hero award. In every match there are performances and plays which stand out and are glamorous. Maybe the goal scorer, or last ditch defensive save stands out and gets the plaudits. However some players are always operating at a high level, and vital for the team's success, but often these actions are not given the spotlight they deserve. In all these cases Go has been vital to the success of the TML 11 team, always putting in a huge effort, always involved in the play, always communicating with team mates and seeking the best ways to win as a team. 
   
• The Marenco Fair Play Award - This new award upholds the principles of sportmanship and gentlemanly ettiquette, which Jorge tries very hard to match up to every game. While on the Gentlemanly side Jorge admitted the award would always have to go to Cael Husband so instead this year he wished to highlight the most improved Marenco.
  Mark Kuroda managed to do what even Jorge was not capable of, and that was to get himself not just sent off with a straight red in a futsal tournament, but then subsequently ejected from the sports hall. To be fair to Mark, it was a red card for kicking the wall in frustration after missing a penalty which the referee did not take kindly to. Then after Mark walked off to watch from the sidelines, the referee followed through and told him to leave the building. With this strange Red Card karma hanging over him, in Mark's first TML appearance he used the powers of injustice on his opposition. After taking down an opposition with a strong challenge, which was rightly a foul, the opposition took exception to Mark and decided to kick him on the floor!!! This resulted in the dirty player seeing a straight red and being sent off --- putting Mark's red card back into balance and thus the deserved winner of the Marenco Fair Play Award. Jorge hopes Mark can use his powers for good into the future.
   
• The Futsal Awards - Mark and Seth presented two futsal awards. The first being the Consistency Award which went to Alo Säkk who makes himself available for every competiton and practice -- especially turning up to make up the numbers. The second, 'Flair Award' went to Arthur Villanueva for his futsal flair. While strong defensive players are not often associated with skills and trickery, Arthur combines the two often displaying a neat range of tricks and skills to work is way out of danger or to open up defences with his build up play. 
   
• The Ladies Awards - Ladies Captain, Natalie presented two awards. The first was the Gambatte Award to Tomoe Kanaya who has turned up for every ladies' session and is always working hard on improving her football. This showed later at the Onsen Remembers 7s tournament where Tomoe bagged a brace in the final match against the US Embassy.
  The second 'All Star' award went to Izzy Jasper for her all round great play and Captaining of the Ladies team in the MIFA competition, where they beat Norway on penalties, with Izzy putting away that vital spot kick. She was also their MVP for the tournament too.

With all the awards over, it was time for the BEFC Christmas Quiz, this year once again hosted by quiz master Jorge who has now established himself as the premium Quiz Master and increasingly setting the benchmark for next year higher. Outdoing last year's Marco's lips, with 'Guess the Baldies', a video 'what happened next round' and a very special 'BEFC' round featuring video cameos from previous players - Branco, Rich S and Caner!
A hilarious, madcap quiz that kept everyone buzzing!

A fantastic Christmas party to remember.