Hurst Pretenders have been represented at five overseas tournaments: three times at the Browns Walking Football Festival (2023, 2024 & 2025) in Vilamoura, Algarve, and twice in south western France (2025 & 2026).
Browns organise a large, well-established biannual tournament. Most of the teams who compete are either Portuguese, some (Mostly British) ex-pat teams from the Algarve, and quite a few visiting British teams, competing in over 50s and over 60s competitions. The standard is generally very high indeed and the renowned facilities at Browns Sports Resort (made use of by numerous international and professional sports teams for warm weather camps) are second to none.
In out first appearance at Browns our over 50s team came back with one of the four trophies competed for, which was a proud moment indeed, while the over 60s boys also made a good showing.
Our first foray into France was a small, but exceptionally friendly tournament laid on by our friends in Aulnay-de-Saintonge, in the rural south western of the country. Because of the extreme heat in the summer of 2025, some of the booked teams dropped out, leaving a round-robin (mini-league) of five teams, playing on grass pitches. After a slow start we drew two and won the last two games, so remained unbeaten and came home with second place honours and the (2-0) scalp of the team who won the trophy on points.
At the start of July (2026), in very hot conditions once again, Hurst Pretenders were represented at the inaugural ‘French National Champions International Tournament’, in St Jean D’Angely, not far from Aulnay-de-Saintonge This area is a hotbed of walking football, having been early adopters of the sport, and the standards of play, players and teams are very high indeed.
We had over 50s and over 60s representation, but we were helped out for numbers by our friends and allies at Aulnay Walking Football Club, who had a team entered in the over 60s competition.
The tournament was spread across a day and a half, and one the first day our 50s team played the French national champions (S.C.A. Phenix 17 from St Jean D’Angely), as well as the regional runners up, and another team who ranked very highly, and we were told that those three teams contained 8 current French walking football international players, including the captain. We lost all three games, but competed well and managed to score in each game. The standard was so high, not helped by the brutally hot conditions.
Our over 60’s team competed well throughout the punishing competition and had a respectable mixture of wins, draws and losses.
Start of Day 2 (the Sunday) was brought forward by an hour because it was forecast to be even hotter than the previous day, and many games were packed in for both of our teams, before the tournament wound up at lunch time. We met the challenge together lads, and lived to tell the tale.
Next year, we might have to look for something a little less challenging though…
