THE Graham Edwards Memorial Trophy heads towards an exciting climax this weekend with the semi-finals taking place this week.
Oswestry Bell Veterans will come up against a New Saints XI, tonight, Tuesday, 10, while Oswestry Town Lions take on St Martins, on Thursday. Both games will be played at The Venue, at Park Hall, as will the final which starts at midday on Sunday, August 15.
The semi finalists have all enjoyed an unbeaten run so far, all topping their groups with maximum points, as well as having overpowering goal differences to boot.
Comfortable
The Saints scored 14 goals without reply in their two group games to register comfortable wins over Loppington and the Duncan Dynamoes, and Oswestry Bell Veterans hit 12 in their matches as they put four past Gobowen Cross Foxes, and eight against Llangollen.
The Oswestry Town Lions narrowly beat the Oswestry Black Lion team 1-0 before romping home against Oswestry Ironworks, hammering ten past the groups bottom side to get down to the last four, and St Martins also had comfortable victories against Dudleston Heath and Ruyton XI Towns scoring 14 in all.
St Martins' striker, Zakh Ward sits pretty as the tournament's top scorer so far with six, but competition will now come down to the wire as the teams get down to the business end of the competition, and a chance to lift the trophy.
Sought after
Former Wales and Liverpool striker, Dean Saunders, who is currently in charge of Blue Square Premier League side, Wrexham, will be presenting the much prized trophy to the winners with all money raised from the tournament going to Leukaemia Research, in memory of local footballer, Graham Edwards, fell victim to the illness.
Edwards played football for a number of local teams in the area before his death, and each year competition organisers have applauded the spirit in which the pre-season tournament is played.
The tournament was traditionally played in his home village of Gobowen for many years but switched to The Venue three years ago.
Officials are urging spectators to turn out in their numbers for the latter stages of the competition and help to swell the total that the small band of dedicted organisers send to Leukaemia Research.