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The 6th annual COEJ ladies tournament took place at Stanmore on 20-21 July 2002. The teams taking part were Stanmore, Hyderi, Leicester, Peterborough, Birmingham, Milton Keynes & Leeds. There were about 260 participants.
As the teams started arriving they were treated to hamri breakfast! Everyone was in time & ready for a brief opening speech by Malika Chandoo & short briefings from other stanmore coordinators reinforcing various rules after which all the matches started with short break for lunch & Salaat. Swimming was at a different venue hence the logistic of ensuring that all the participants had been taken took us the whole morning to organise because the matches at the centre were scheduled to continue till 6.00pm & swimming was to start at 5.00pm. We did manage eventually, thanks to our minibuses and ladies volunteering to take girls in cars. As everything went so smoothly on the first day our coordinators decided to hold mixed team friendly matches on the next day in the afternoon after the remaining matches were over. Everyone enjoyed this. Fortunately, over the two days there were very few minor disagreements amongst the teams & the participants. There were a few minor injuries but were handled by our medical & first aid ladies. One girl needed an emergency treatment as she had a panic attack while playing football. The ambulance was able to deal with this on sight. Another incident was at swimming pool where a girl had epileptic attack. We were fortunate we had a medical nurse there who was able to deal with this. I must say the highlight for the entire tournament for the younger girls seems to be the Saturday evening programmes. We had organised weakest link & bonfire with onsite cooked fresh burgers, pizzas, chips etc. which everyone enjoyed. Girls sat up socialising till Fajr Salaat & then settled for a few hours’ sleep. The mixed-team matches were played in good spirt on Sunday & everyone enjoyed them. The presentation ceremony was attended by parents & stanmore ladies committee representatives. Everyone was in a jovial mood & joined in well during the ceremony. Representatives from all jamaats were invited to present different trophies.
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