Great Barr Crawl - Birmingham - December 2nd/3rd 2006

Team: Oscar, Steve G, Tom S, Granty Baby, Lindsay, Ange, Jono, Rhys.

Saturday:

Traditionally, we have travelled from Nottingham to Birmingham each day for this event for 2 reasons:

1. The party is rubbish.

2. We're getting old and it's close enough to justify sleeping in our own beds.

This year was no exception.

Anyway, the Ultimate:

Game 1 vs uBu2.

We saw this one as a nice warm up against the Uni second team (especially because their actual first team was somewhere else so it was, in effect, uBu3). We went out pretty hard and didn't really give them time to settle into the game. A combination of their lack of handlers and our height made the zone particularly effective and we closed out the game comfortably (8-3ish)

Game 2 vs UTB

This one meant a little bit more to me as my old captain from Bears was playing for the opposition. Again, was a pretty comfortable game and the result was never in doubt, despite me getting schooled by said ex-captain taking advantage of me poaching too far off.

Game 3 vs Kent

Another important one for me as Kent is the new team run by partner in Whip'Scar, Whippet. They played exceptionally well against our zone and took down some unbelieveable swill. We were trading points until very close to the end (with them always a point up or level) but we held our nerve to clinch an impressive 8-7 win. If you ask anyone how we played, they'd say it wasn't our finest performance but the wasy we held our nerve and ground out the victory was about as pleasing as any result in the weekend.

Game 4 vs WOOF

Without making the whole tournament sound like it was about me, WOOF are a bunch of my old friends from Warwick and we have, to say the least, a healthy rivalry so this meant quite a lot to me.

Most of the game passed by for me in a haze of aggressive D and one particularly special endzone hammer grab. Somone else will have to write the report for this game if they want more said anyway.

It was tight, painful to be on the sideline, one of those games where you just want to be involved in every point. In the end, we pulled it out of the bag to win by a point (6-5).

 

We then had a nice 3 hour break which we used to go into Birmingham, eat Pizza and drink Gluhwein at the German Christmas Market.

 

Game 5 vs Up The Left

We all wanted this one. Mainly because Gordon was playing for the opposition. A combination of safer, more confident handling and fitness levels took us through to win (I think, 8-5).

 

Game 6 vs Discophilia

They were short of players, we were playing quite well by now. Don't remember much of the game. We won though.

 

Day 1 played 6, won 6

 

Sunday

Game 1 vs Arctic 3 (Arthur Terry School)

These kids are getting frighteningly good. Their 1st team had beaten Airwolf on Saturday and would go on to win another game but all 3 of their teams were a joy to watch and awesome to play, playing the game in superb spirit and never giving up.

We went out against them as we expect teams to go out against us yet they earned and completely deserved both points they scored against us (I seem to remember some comedy skying). These kids are 15. In 2 or 3 years I'm hoping they decide to go to University in Nottingham.

Final Score 9-2

 

Game 2 vs Angels 2

Another hazy memory of this one, we won, by 2 or 3 I think and nearly missed the game because we were having too much fun in the call from the previous game against Arctic, can someone else fill in the gaps?

 

Game 3 vs Loose Morals

Can't remember much of this one, other than a chump in fairy wings and Lindsay actually scoring a point.

Another comfortable win.

 

Another 3 hour gap as we didn't have a cross-over. This time spent drinking Gluhwein, eating bratwurst and watching Forest play like a bunch of chumps against Salisbury.

 

Semi-final vs Angels 1

The only disappointing game of the weekend, we didn't get going, never looked like we had any space, got broken all over the pitch and Angels were fully deserving of their 8-5 victory

 

Which meant

3v4 vs WOOF (again)

(See above for the importance of this game)

Again, this was about as close as you could get (so close that Steve didn't know which team had won at the end). We traded points all the way through and it was as tense as any game I can remember playing Indoors. We came out 6-5 winners.

 

And we won the Spirit prize for the second time in 2 years (and 3rd in 4 years with the previous 2 won by Block Stack) just to top off an awesome weekend.

 

So, in conclusion, P11 W10 L1, Pos 3rd, Spirit Winners

 

Thanks again to everyone who played, it was the most fun I've had with FC Indoors since the last Indoor tournament ;-p