Strange Blue Tournament Report

Mixed Tour 1

Hello,

Abstract:

Strange Mixed Balls embraced the terrier spirit to play some tip top ultimate, have bundles of fun, defeat an entire nation and finish 7th at Mixed Tour 1, my favourite tournament of all time.

An auspicious start was made to MT1 by SMB with news of Simon (officially the most attractive man in Cambridge Ultimate) being involved in a rather nasty head on collision which wrote off his car. Fortunately his good looks were undamaged and he would eventually make it to Brighton before the end of the day. Tall Sandy was still recovering from a cold so he couldn't play and I then misdirected everyone to the furthest away corner from our actual pitch before our first game vs second seeds Brighton 1. The team was subdivided into an O-line and a D-line so that we could make the best use of everyone's talents and get use to playing with each other a little faster. Starring for the D team were: Megan, Mel, Snodge, Jassy, Mark, Tom B, Berry, Sandy and Paul. Over on the O were Alex, Linz, Susanna, Nat, Jon, Rob, Simon and myself.

SMB 5 - 13 Brighton 1

Well it seems that we were a bit sleepy, a bit not use to playing with each other and a bit lacking in smiles going down as we did 7-0 at half time. Top moment was Paul getting point blocked by a guy's ass. We resolved to adopt a terrier as our mascot which meant that we were going to run around in an overly enthusiatic fashion and enjoy the simple pleasures of throwing, catching, sunshine, Haribo and having our bellies tickled. With this in mind we fought back really rather well with Berry securing a monster Callahan and we held our heads high against the eventual runners up. In the post game call Tom and Berry jumped, thrusted their groins into each other and fell on their behinds all in one elegant movement.

SMB 9 - 13 Thundering Turds 1

Following on from a circle of love in which we emphasised having a good time we came up against a very fired up and a little bit angry Thundering Herd team. This time the O line got into their groove very quickly, Jon hucking to Susanna who had a huge layout grab for the first point and only turning over in the very last point of the first half whilst the D line was getting blocks all over the field. TH had probably the best women of any team in the tournie but our girls did themselves proud in spite of some very aggresive marks. We were edged out in the end despite Jon making many a difficult grab (and partly because I got point blocked in the last point) but I'm pretty sure we had lots more fun.

SMB 13 - 10 Italy (that's the country)

The Italians had just come out of a sudden death defeat to Brighton so we knew they'd be difficult opposition and we also knew that they'd be a little bit tired. They might have thought that they'd be in the driving seat but the boot was on the other foot. The first half was close but we had the edge and the D line put in some great points including Berry skying the funny little Italian guy with the moustache. Oh wait, that was Paul. The Italians were great fun and I must confess to really enjoying the stereotypical empassioned outburst they had at each other after an errant huck. Simon showed up, got on the pitch and threw and inch perfect huck before proving he was human by sending a forehand into the ground. Post game I won a pair of sock-cees and Jon, instead of hurdling Simon, just kicked him onto the ground.

Saturday Night
We camped it up before heading to the gay capital of the south. Fish, chips and mushy peas were eaten whilst I got shat on by a seagul even though I was under two umbrellas. We then threw stones, lots of stones. In the morning we had porridge and it was nice. Mark said "You know the kind of porn where the guy sticks his Richard (not actual word used) through a hole in the wall and it gets slapped around and....". We said "No".

SMB 13 - 3 ABH1

The D line really got into their groove in this game, sticking in score after score after getting block after block. The final point was scored by Mel following a fantastic cut. Woop!

Since we finished so early I decided it was really important to wake us up and to do that we'd have a race from endzone line to endzone line. This proved to be the worst decision I've ever made since it made Rob pull a hamstring. Bugger. Sorry Rob.

SMB 9 - 13 EMU1

EMU came out of a nervous sudden death victory and we wanted to hit them hard like we did against Italy. Alas they started much brighter than us and took an early lead. Once we got ourselves up and running we did ourselves proud with Megan and Jassy doing great work shutting down their ladies. Some high percentage forehands and hammers from the hand of Tom found their way into the hands of Berry and Sandy and we started to claw back the defecit but alas it was to no avail as we ran out of time to catch up. On the plus side, I can reveal that Linz greatly enjoyed recieving it from Simon.

SMB 13 - 11 Brighton 2

We started really well going 3-0 up and the consistently 4 lady O-line did a great job of playing well against and enjoying all the crazy D's that Brighton tried. An amusing moment occured when Jon and Simon managed to get off about 8 little passes to each other before a defender dived across and then they carried on for a couple more. Linz, who really grew through the tournament made great continuation cuts before getting injured which allowed Jassy and Snodge to display their wonderfully composed offensive sides. It also forced semi-injured Nat to get more involved in the flow and she showed her metal pulling off a tricky upline assist. Mark, lumbered with the job of handling when he wanted to cut, showed what he could do by shutting down Brighton's main handler and getting touches to several of his throws. The biggest plus from this game was probably the way the D line really gelled and showed that they were a force to be reckoned with. In the last point the O line wobbled a little a bit and had a few turns but displayed great determination to get the disc back everytime and eventually we came through triumphant finishing 7th out of the 40 teams present.

MVPs - Ladies: Whilst everyone played really well and contributed greatly, I think two ladies stood out and fittingly they were voted as joint female MVPs, Linz and Alex. Linz cut and moved the disc brilliantly whilst Alex, our only real handler, shouldered the burden and thrived under the pressure getting the offense on it's way. Fellas - The votes were also split on the male front, going to Mark and the guy who chooses who gets to go to the next mixed tour. Mark shouldered the role as the main handler on the D line and his hucks were a real weapon. His aggressive and effective handler covering reminded me of a young Nick Wong, which links me nicely to..... err.... me. Needless to say I did a great job, taking on the role of chief turner overer for the O line so no one else had to. I may also have slipped in the odd layout D, breakmark throw and inspirational team talk.

Well done on skipping, skimming or reading to the end of that, apologies for the length. I'm really proud of how well everyone on the team did and I think I can safely say that just about everyone had a really fantastic time. I'm looking forward to the next one,

Nick