Paratroopers Lift Army Football Cup May 2023

Paratroopers have won the Army’s football cup for the first time, winning through in a final that pitted Essex and Suffolk’s airborne soldiers against each other.

Colchester-based 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment beat Woodbridge’s 23 Parachute Engineer Regiment 3-2 in the final of the Army FA Major Units Challenge Cup Final last night (Wed 10 May). The five-goal thriller at Aldershot Military Stadium saw 23 Para Engr Regt take the lead twice and miss a penalty, with 3 PARA twice equalising and then scoring the winner in the 92nd minute.

3 PARA skipper Lance Corporal Dominic Walmsley said: “This is massive for 3 PARA - we’re not known as a footballing unit, so to win this competition for the first time is huge. From the first minute it was tough. For them to score so early was damaging for morale, but we got the ball down and the paratrooper mentality kicked in from then until the final minute. I thought the winning goal would come and we got the job done.”

LCpl Walmsley praised the quality of the 23 Para Engr Regt footballers, who are stablemates of 3 PARA in 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team, the British Army’s global response force.

“We knew 23 Parachute Engineer Regiment would be fit and fight to the end, when both teams were flooding people forward,” He said. “We were both pushing for the goal, which is the airborne way.”