…and the game begins…
A very close game was staged earlier this afternoon at Paleo Faliron’s Municipal Pool (Restion) – in what we call Falifornia – in the Greek Water Polo Championship between Paleo Faliron Athletic Club (AOPF) and the Nautical Club of Chios (NOX). Thanks to the CMC (Chios Marine Club) circular, we made it there…
The Chians took an early lead but the Faliriots managed to equalise on three occasions and at the end Nikos Karakasis following a good tackling by his fellow players scored the winning goal, putting the Eastern Aegean islanders on course for the playoffs…
The score: 8-9 and the four periods (2-3, 2-2, 2-3, and 2-1)
One of the many AOPF forward thrusts well defended by the Chiots
The teams:
Paleo Faliron: (Nikos Mamouris coach), Tsalkanis, Yoniotakis, Gardikas 2, Alafragis 1, Kourliaftis, Theodoropoulos 2, Kakaris, Athanassiou, Tsahilidis, Troulos 2, Spiliotopoulos, I.Gavalas, Katsagounos, Liapakis 1 and Pazaitis.
Chios Nautical Club (NOX): Michalis Lazaridis (coach), Karambetsos, Mimidis, Roustamof, Tesanovits, Kalagyros, Karakasis 2, Kandioglou, Pantazopoulos 3, Papoukas 3, Kalogerakos 1, Pettas, Aivaliotis and Kazazis
Referees: Kouretas and Polichronopoulos
A view of the spectators whilst the score was 7-5 for the Chiots
I was with mixed feelings watching this game; emanating from Chios but also a Faliriot… but I did enjoy the game between these teams which have a long history in water polo with a presence also at European level – remember Chios playing at Crystal Palace and the great crowd there? Given that we fully support all sea-sports and following our last September’s co-hosting event at the Nautical Club of Vouliagmeni (NOB) called “Enhancing sea-sports through Shipping”, it is about time that the Greek shipping fraternity fully supports financially all the nautical clubs of Greece for multiple reasons; socially, sport-wise to enhance the ethos of sport itself, to take account that the municipalities are ‘dried-out’, to name but a few and more importantly to attract major international games… It hurts to learn that last year Paleon Faliron couldn’t make it to European competition as its coffers were empty…
…and the final score
Good to see members of the Shipping Fraternity and other fellow Chiots, amongst them Aegean Protective Coatings’ and former president of the Chios Marine Club Captain Pantelis Monogioudis and his son Dimitris, Leandros-Socrates Rakintzis -a Greek prominent lawyer and economist, senior civil servant and politician and Prof. Michael Melekos, a well known Ouroligist and Academic!
Have a nice weekend and think it over, spread the good word around and let’s have Greece’s shipping cluster involved financially as the Greek state, with all due respect lags behind… municipalities, prefectures do not have any money to spare and or haven’t showed any sensitivity whatsoever in this respect lately…
