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| GRRR |
In a show of remarkable anti-faff, the minibus set off to
find our budding refs in what must be record time (thanks to Adi for his help
with vehicle re-arranging).
Unfortunately for all concerned, this was apparently too long for Mike’s
bladder…
Saturday started far too early with a mass boat-fixing
session at 6.30am, 5 rolls of gaffa tape later (most of) our boats snuck their
way through the scrutinizers. The boys
started as they meant to continue with a 6-0 whitewash of Aston. The girls held off ULU ladies for the first
half, but some crack shots meant an unfortunate loss. The boys then had a brilliant 2-1 win over
Loughborough; this game was the birthplace of some signature moves – the Alan
Barry header and the Graham self-bin (we’ll ignore the binning yourself on the
ropes from a certain secretary who’ll remain nameless…).
Next up saw the ladies taking on Lancaster, despite a great
effort and some good shots at goal, unfortunately the scoreline (yet again)
didn’t reflect the play. There was time
for a lot of sun-bathing and heckling at other matches / supporting a very
day-glo Ant, before the boys had their toughest match yet…Sheffield
Hallam. Despite some fantastic play, and
being one of the first teams to actually score against them, the eventual
champions pushed us out of the top 12.
Now onto something Liverpool are unbeatable at – partying
(and tying Tolly to trees). With some
great fancy dress efforts from the boys (if only there was photographic
evidence of Gareth), and a very co-ordinated water-pistol toting team of cat
women, there isn’t a lot else that can be said.
For the girls, Sunday morning came round very quickly (6.30
am sort of quickly), but we had a grudge match to play. Still wearing bright red lipstick, our
unusual warm-up came into its own, and despite (or more likely because of) York
trying their best to have us forfeit a game due to a clerical cock-up, we took
a 1-0 (should have been 2-0 but we’re not very good at hearing whistles!)
victory, witnessed by only a select few who could be bothered to make it out of
bed. We had found our inner grrrr! With barely time for a quick leg-stretch, and
still before most of the boys had stumbled out of bed we were back on the pitch
against Sheffield Hallam. It was a
valiant effort from all, and we certainly gave them a real fight, but despite
another great goal from Ailsa, we couldn’t hold out against the machine that is
Lou’s shooting arm, and meant that the girls finished a very respectable 14th
of twenty-something teams.
The boys were back and Loughborough were still smarting from
their defeat yesterday, it was close but they had a score to settle and took
the win. (Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to drag Tolly from his bed the night
that Ben had to leave us??). They then
went on to play both Southampton and Cambridge, which both culminated in a
nail-biting golden goal. Despite shots
at goal going left, right and (unfortunately not) centre the boys had to settle
for 12th position.
A brilliant and wonderfully sunny weekend was had by all,
with a big thanks to Ant (who was robbed of a bronze medal in the Old Gits
league) and Ailsa for organising and being generally fab this year. A massive well-done to Gareth, Ellie and
Schneids for qualifying as refs. I don’t
think the score really reflect quite how well everyone played, and improved
over the weekend – a massive congratulations to all those who played their
first ever polo matches this weekend.
Finally I think we have all learned some important life
lessons: pee before you get on the
minibus (or bring an appropriate receptacle), duo polo is the future, roaring
is bad for your voice but great for your playing, and don’t ever forget to
bring the GRRRR!
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