Liu Minxia

SHEKOU Soccer 8s, a local amateur tournament that has gone from strength to strength since being first held in 1999, will be renamed China Soccer 8s this year as it is receiving more entries from different parts of the country, the founder and organizer of the league said last week.

Antony Hatcher, an Englishman who has been organizing a soccer tournament in the first week of September every year for the past nine years, said this year the Soccer 8s would be a two-day event instead of the one-day event it was previously, and also include a kids’ tournament, or Mini 8s.

Back in 1999, only two teams participated in the tournament, Inter Shenzhen and Swiss X1, a Hong Kong team that is part of the Hong Kong Yau Yee League. “When the Swiss came and saw the Shenzhen-based team was playing in sports shoes without any protection, they laughed,” Hatcher said. “They thought they would have an easy win, but to their surprise, the Shenzhen players were not only fast but also had very good ball skills and, needless to say, the Swiss lost that game by quite wide margin.”

The next year, another team from Hong Kong called Dynamos took part and then the tournament really took off. Last year there were 14 teams, mainly from Macao and Hong Kong. “We hope to attract more local teams to join in this year,” Hatcher said.