. . . . . . . . . 1997 Tour 1 , hitchin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sun Apr 6 18:40:37 BST 1997 A report penned by David, Dora and Luke hurricane (the youth team from Hitchin) --------------- we played zone, they played zone. Some points were 15 minutes long! Very even match. Our handling against zone and our flow felt really good. Teri excelled as a popper. Final score 6:2 to us. Alice made a great catch for the final point. sneeekys --------------- we played zone for most of the game; they played man. Our zone was effective. They moved it around a lot but rarely made many yards. We were up 7-1 when they started breaking through some more. We won 8-4. Ian laid out for a spectacular final point. Sideline insights: "Possession is important!" - Dora; "Only slightly important" - quipped David sarcastically. For the lunch break we went to watch stan beat shotgun wedding. squawks (=skunks + mohawks) --------------- we lost 7-3. opinions vary as to why. "they were a better team" is an interesting analysis. or "we failed to convert in the endzone, while they did convert a lot", perhaps? A good feature of our play was that against a zone we were connecting long passes. Craig had a number of great grabs long and spent the next half minute waiting for everyone to catch up. superfly --------------- we had a great game with fly, a mixture of zone and man -- the wind never abated. we won 10-6. Fly did superb hammers into the endzone. Natalie made a great grab surrounded by four huge guys and Graham was crucial for many long Ds. Their "3 catalogue poses" call was a scream. SUNDAY ------ Format: On Sunday the top 4 played a knockout, 5-12 played a knockout, and 13-23 played two round-robins. === our goal diff on saturday was enough to get us the number 12 spot, so we were in the knockout for 5-12 === 5v12. oxford-1: --------------- We lost 17-9, but the match was close much of the time. Occasionally they pulled out stunning funkymonk flow, but we managed to hold them down for a huge long game. Early on, we were even 4-2 up! Natalie did a huge one-handed layout in the last point, against their zone. 9v12 red jesters: ----------------- a very even game in which both teams felt they were making a comeback most of the time. They zoned us now and then - occasionally we worked it up beautifully. At the hooter we were ahead, but then Red took it to 12-11. In the end we won 13-12. Couldn't be closer! Red don't call because the spirit is in the game. We agreed (but we sang "strange blue" anyway). 9v10 Headrush --------------- we won 17-7 Have we ever scored SEVENTEEN in a match before? nuff said. We came in 9th! This is a splendid result! We played real team ultimate all weekend and it showed in our results. Everyone contributed and team spirit was great, especially on Sunday when the wind was gone and there was nothing to be frustrated about. Sunday was a blast and it was great to have Greg, Greg's brother Tom, and an American named Fisher playing with us. Greg made big D and many scoring throws, Tom was big in the air on O and D, and Fisher was useful as a skilled handler. Alice ran her legs off and made pressure D, especially against Headrush. David finished off a good weekend with a huge D in the penultimate point and a huge D and then score to win the match. Ico was a solid handler all weekend. Mindy played all positions and was especially notable Saturday as wing in the windy zone on O and D. Greg's parents came and supported us! As did Dora on Saturday and Ian on Sunday after injuring his quad on Sat. Thanks, guys! We had more fun than anyone else! Big fun, big win, Go Strange!! Let's do it again in Leicester. The team: (and we really FELT like a team, it was great!) --- -------------------- Alice, Craig (Sat), Luke, Mindy, Ico, David, Teri, Greg (Sun), Tom (Sun), Ian (Sat), Mike Schell, Fisher (Sun), Natalie Colombian Princess, Graham. Results as far as I can recall: -------- 1 Shotgun Wedding (in spite of missing about 1/2 their squad) 2 Catch 22 3 Druids 4 Stan 5 Oxford 6 Chevron 7 Violently Happy 8 First Touch 9 Strange Blue 10 Headrush 11 Red 12 Squawks 13 Village People? .... Blue Arse Flies .... 23 Superfly Spirit: STAN From csv.warwick.ac.uk!britdisc-owner Mon Apr 7 14:39:08 1997 From: amtsjh@amsta.leeds.ac.uk (S J Hill) To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: Hitchin. The Tour is underway.... Hello This isn't a regular tourney report, but I thought (and I could be wrong) that people might like to know how things went from the tour perspective. But first the results - then you don't have to look at the rest of it if you can't be arsed. I have included the no. of ranking points that each team scores from the tourney. (NB - with places 13-23 being taken from results from pools that finished in such a way as to need points diff. to be used, etc - and then Chris counting wrong! - the positions initially given out yesterday were not right.) BUF Ultim-8 Tour I - Hitchin ---------------------------- Pos. Team Points 1. Shotgun 160 2. Catch 22 140 3. Druids 120 4. Stan 105 Spirit Winners -------------------------------------- 5. Oxford Ultimate I 90 6. Chevron Action Flash 75 7. Violently Happy 60 8. First Touch 50 9. Strange Blue 40 10. Headrush 30 11. Red Jesters 25 12. Squawks 20 -------------------------------------- 13. Village People 18 14. Floating Bloke 16 15. Sneeeky's 14 16. Playthings 12 17. Jedi Children 10 18. SLUT 8 19. Oxford Ultimate II 6 20. Blue Arse Flies 5 21. Bliss 4 22. Hurricane 3 23. Superfly 2 (Only 23 teams entered.) The tourney itself: Saturday - VERY windy. Sunday - no wind (and some SUN!) Shotgun beaten in domestic tournament for the first time since June 95 (?) - but then go on to win comfortably on Sunday brushing aside Druids and then Catch who capitalised on the change in weather conditions to make their first Open final. The old Sharks and Monks merge to form the Oxford Super-Club (yet to be named) - and then get it together remarkably quickly to beat the strong-looking Chevron in the game for 5th. First Touch win their cross-over in to the top 8 but will unfortunately lose out in Leicester because of the appearance of Shotgun II for the rest of the tour! Village People (without their inspirational leader Guru Stu!) won the Sunday competition for 13th place. A few other points... I think the new format was met with approval on the whole - of course having 23 teams makes things more complicated - congrats to Chris Hughes for coming up with a very workable and sensible solution - even if it did make his "brain" hurt. All the teams at this tournament played as ROSTERED teams - which is good to see. And there weren't many problems. Teams seem be taking the idea on board and sorting themselves out. The only problems really only relate to World Club teams and players - and these would happen anyway because of the WFDF rules about WUCC. There were 9 full size, marked pitches. On Sunday we had scoreboards (the wind on Saturday would have destroyed them!) Expect pitch-side water and sports massage(!) to appear in Leicester. I think there was some confusion over the fact that people had different game lengths in different sections of the tournament, but that will improve. On the down-side - especially after the fuss made of spirit at Nationals... Teams were given score-sheets this w/e to fill in. This worked on the whole. The sheet for Sunday included a space for team's spirit votes. Not all of these were given in. Whilst the TDs tried to find people to collect spirit votes from each team individually they could not find everyone. I don't know of many players that don't attach great prestige to winning spirit at a tourney - esp. a big tourney - and yet so many of us are too lazy to fill in a sheet of paper and leave it with the TD. WHY? I should say that MOST teams voted - but a handful didn't - which is a shame. I'm sure other people will have things to say from their perspective so I'll leave it there... see you in Leicester for round 2. Just for interest teams that have so far entered Leicester (which can take 24 teams) are (in the order they paid): Catch 22, Stange Blue, Jedi Children, Druids, Village People, Shotgun I and II, Bliss, Stan, First Touch, Floating Bloke, Sneeeky's, Chevron AF, Uriel, Oxford Ultimate I, Squawks, Twin Peaks. >From what I am told by other teams - there will not be any space by the end of the week - at which point we will be able to tell everyone who gets in on the basis of ranking, paying in time etc etc. Cheers Si Hill