Dreamcast Millennium Cup - The Celebrity Football Competition Lost to Time

I love a bit of footy. I also love the Dreamcast. When the two collide, I sit up and take notice. Indeed, over the years here at the Dreamcast Junkyard, we've pored over the various digital representations of the beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) game pressed to GD-ROM, as well as the somewhat questionable sponsorship deals SEGA Europe entered into with football clubs across the continent. Hell, we even looked somewhat briefly at the Dreamcast Beach Football Challenge which was held in July 2000 in the exotic environs of...erm...Richmond, Surrey.

Richmond was the natural choice for beach football. 

But there was another Dreamcast-themed footy event which preceded the Dreamcast Beach Football Challenge; an event which until very recently had completely passed me by, and an event which is almost impossible to find any real information on, even though photographic evidence confirms it was pretty well publicised, featured quite a few celebrity competitors and was even shown on Sky TV.

Now, this all stems from a listing that recently appeared on eBay for a football shirt listed as a 'genuine rare 1999 Dreamcast Millennium Cup celebrity retro football shirt' (thanks to my eagle-eyed Dreamcast Junkyard colleague Kev Mason for the heads up). Intrigued, and initially a little skeptical of the title of the listing, I looked deeper into the background of this shirt, and I feel I may have inadvertently slipped down yet another Dreamcast rabbit hole of lost media. Buckle up for the tale of the Dreamcast Millennium Cup 5-a-side football tournament.

Screenshot in case someone with £50 to spare sees this before I cash my giro.
Update: Kev bought the shirt.

Before I continue, I must warn you that everything I've gleaned about this competition is derived from the scant information I can find online and so there's some guesswork included, but I thought I'd document my insanity search results here for posterity. Where else than the internet's premier repository for useless Dreamcast nonsense that only seven people on Earth care about? That's a rhetorical question, by the way.

Anyhow, here's what I discovered. It appears that the Dreamcast Millennium Cup was a nationwide 5-a-side football tournament held across the UK in 1999 and 2000 which was sponsored by SEGA. It's odd to me that the competition wasn't called the SEGA Millennium Cup or something similar, but I suppose that's in keeping with the company's desire to remove almost any reference to the SEGA name from the Dreamcast's branding in Europe at that time. As mentioned, I had never heard of this tournament prior to seeing the eBay listing, but a cursory Google search (other search engines are available) resulted in a few Getty Images/Alamy results and a brief mention over at Sega Retro.

The Sega Retro entry reads: 

Dreamcast Millennium Cup

A British celebrity five-a-side tournament was sponsored by the Sega Dreamcast during 1999 and 2000. Thousands of teams took part, with the last 16 having their matches broadcast on Sky Sports in early 2000.

Heavily armed with that information, I looked at the metadata held for the few snaps which appear on the photo-hosting sites that still have images available and it appears that the vast majority of them were snapped on Sunday 13 August 2000 by a photographer named Tom Hevezi. Now, looking for information on Tom Hevezi will show that he was a sports photographer who covered some major sporting events back in that time period, most notably several FA Cup Final games, along with many Premier League matches. So far, so good. 

The curious thing about the photos of the Dreamcast Millennium Cup though, is that there are no images of the actual games being played, only shots of some of the celebrities who took part. These include such titans as members of 2000s pop group 911 (one of them wearing the very shirt listed), Quadrophenia star Phil Daniels, Lily Allen's dad and vindaloo worrier Keith Allen, TV presenters Angus Deayton and Bradley Walsh and even the international heart throb and superstar Dean 'Wellard' Gaffney. Oh, and Borat's ex Isla Fisher was there too. Disclaimer: other than Isla Fisher, I'm aware that many of our international readers will have no fucking idea who any of those late '90s and early 2000s British 'stars' are/were, but trust me. They were well known...ish.

The Dreamcast Beach Football Challenge

On the 15th July 2000, Sega held the inaugural Dreamcast Beach Football Challenge at Richmond Athletics Ground in Essex, UK. I say 'inaugural,' but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a repeat event the following year, as by April 2001 Sega had already taken their ball and gone home. Regardless, this event is quite interesting as it was primarily hosted by Sega Europe as a marketing campaign designed to spread awareness of the Dreamcast in Europe and the UK. Plus, the event was helped no end by the international footballing glitterati that was invited to take part.

What I wouldn't give to own that tent in the background.

Most notable amongst the sporting royalty was none other than Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, who represented with a team of French ex-international players. Other teams taking part in the tournament included Manchester United Greats, Liverpool Legends and Arsenal Allstars. Naturally, the other teams comprised ex-players from the respective clubs, and by all accounts the event was a huge crowd pleaser. According to this article from 2000, Sega imported over 750 tonnes of sand for the games to be played on, and over 4,000 spectators crammed into the venue to watch the footballing magic unfold. Elsewhere, according to a small report in Dreamcast Magazine issue 12, there were multiple console pods dotted around and lots of freebies for the attendees. France walked away the victors (thumping Manchester United 5-3 in the final), but check out these photos of this lesser-known Dreamcast event:

We're pretty confident that this whole thing was a lot more credible than the Sega Spud Dive, but ultimately it did little to alter the Dreamcast's fortunes. Were you at the Dreamcast Beach Football Challenge on that July day in 2000? Did you grab any merchandise? If so, please share your memories of the event in the comments section!