The date has been set for this year's Lava Cup! The Lava Cup 🏆 Tournament is a seven-a-side international football tournament which raises money for local charities, and this year’s event will be held at Petershill Park in Glasgow on Saturday, May 23rd from 10am - 5pm. The International Lava Cup is a tournament for over-40s, played annually in Scotland, with teams travelling from all over the world for the prestigious event. The grassroots tournament, which was formed by Marc Boal, started out with a pilot event in 2022 at Cormack Park in Aberdeen and has gone from strength to strength to become an annual invitational event! Marc Boal, Lava Cup Organiser, said: "Playing international football is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of us; players aged 40 to 75 are now doing this! The new friendships, bonding, and well-being it creates are providing a pathway to actively change the way people think and, more importantly, change lives. At the same time, we are also raising funds for local charities in the Springburn community.” The tournament is organised in conjunction with the Icelandic 🇮🇸 touring side Throttur Reykjavik Old Boys, who have been coming to Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 since 2018! The name of the tournament replicates the trophy which is actually made of lava picked from the most recent eruption from an Icelandic volcano! 🌋 The lava for this year’s trophy was collected from the Sundhnúkur volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, near the fishing town of Grindavík, Iceland. 🇮🇸 The 2026 trophy is the heaviest ever… weighing in at a hefty 3.2kg. This is due to molten lava containing a mix of elements such as iron, magnesium, silicon, and others such as aluminium. Each of these forms minerals (mainly oxides), and each mineral has a different melting point. The first minerals to hit their melting points are iron and magnesium oxides: they form crystals, which are also found within the trophy. An Italian quartz marble plinth sits on a solid sapele mahogany base. There is also red crystalline cobalt glass (which represents magma) that are placed beside the main lava tower to give the trophy a distinctive look. Last year's Lava Cup was won by Danish 🇩🇰 club Lyngby Boldklub which took place at Falkirk FC and the tournament raised £3,735 for two local charities! Twenty teams are taking part this year and coming from all over the world including sides from the USA 🇺🇸 Portugal 🇵🇹 Czech Republic 🇨🇿 Iceland 🇮🇸 Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Poland 🇵🇱 Germany 🇩🇪 Norway 🇳🇴 and Holland 🇳🇱 This year's Lava Cup Tournament will partner & support the incredible charities Men Matter Scotland & Partick Thistle Charitable Trust. Hats off to Marc, and everyone involved, and we hope this year's Lava Cup is yet another success in what is a wonderful concept! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 @MenScotland @ThistleTrust @marcboal #LavaCup2026 #LavaCup #GrassrootsFootball #MenMatterScotland #over40sfootball @LyngbyBoldklub