Warwick Bears Indoors Tournament

Match Report

Friday

Stylish (Captain "Fat Face")
Munky (Crappy co-ordinator)
Mary (Little Miss Social Sec)
Sarah (Little Daan)
George (Gordon the 1st Cut)
Mathias (More pull than a John Deere Tractor)
Stas (CTAC the "vodka and redbull downing" Russian)
Matt (The "Last Minute Catch" Wonder)

At 19:35, the DD guys were a little worried that George still wasn't there. So reluctantly they made their way to the Virgin train that would take them Coventry and eventually Warwick. With 30 seconds left till departure a rather calm George had hopped on and started walking down the carriage. His estimate of getting across London in 40 minutes on a Friday at rush hour was a little unrealistic. Hey, we can't complain … he did just make it! In true organised fashion Munky had printed off the directions of where to go, but in true Munky style had left them in the printer! Duh! So when the Disc Doctors arrived in Coventry the best idea they had was to go the "The Rocket", a typical local pub by the station. Thanks to a little coordination between Mary, Spike and the organisers the guys (and girls) took the bus over to the campus. N.B. I would like to add that we did have the number of the organiser, but found out later (from him) that he never carries his phone around with him!
Finally at the destination, Disc Doctors headed straight for "the bar". No really, that was the name! At least there was no confusion as to what kind of things happened on the premises. DD took a trip to the union where they ripped up the dance floor, showing the Warwick students how to dance, Doctor's style! DD had only been dancing for about 5-10 minutes when Mary spotted that Mathias had already met a pretty girl. After an hour or so of dancing and drinks, the guys left, even Mathias who chose to leave without the girl's number. Silly fool!

Saturday

Angels (7) - Disc Doctors (1)

Angels were a team from Brixton, London. They were the kind of team that trains and plays so near to you, yet you end up travelling 100 miles from your home in order to play them! The fellow Londoners, who were seeded 2nd in group C, set the day's standard by throwing a zone. It only took a single mistake from DD for Angels to capitalise and score. With a little suggestion from Spike, DD formed a "3-piece magic handle triangle" (copyright Munky 2005) that broke up the zone, allowing Stas to score the first point for Disc Doctors. Although DD were 5 - 1 down, they didn't give up the fight and kept up a great deal of pressure during the 7th Angels' point. The point lasted for a long time, wearing down both teams and causing Angels to throw away a lot of discs. As the buzzer went, the scoreboard read 7 - 1 to Angels; a tough first game that was apparent from the large number of people staggering off the pitch at the end.

Disc Doctors (3) - Bears 3 (2)

In terms of number of teams in the tournament, which was 20, about half of them were made up of ex-Warwick Bears players! Naturally Bears had entered Bears 1 - 4 to play in this particular tournament. With so many players on home turf, home support can become a little overwhelming, but DD kept their cool, gaining many of the turnovers by forcing Bears to make mistakes. It didn't take the home side long to get their rhythm back, scoring 2 points against DD. But never fear Disc Doctors are here! The guys turned the scoring around quicker than George W could rig the US election. The paced picked up with all the players having to run hard to keep up with their marks. Doctors scored a point and Munky caught two great passes from Stylish, both of which were outside of the blue lines! It really didn't help that the sidelines blended in quite nicely with the blue colour of the sports hall floor! Travelling at sprinting pace towards a corner of pitch makes the lines a little hard to spot, but determined not the step out for the third time in a row, Munky stood in the endzone reaching out to score DD's 2nd. The tight score elevated tension and shouting on pitch was immense, but this didn't stop the Doctors increasing their score to 3 points. With the seconds disappearing like an open packet of crisps in the pub, Finnish and Stylish thwarted the Bears' last-ditch overhead attempt. Disc Doctors had won the game and a very close one at that! Despite their loss, Bears 3 were fantastically spirited and enthusiastic during the calls, even though they didn't even manage to hold themselves up trying the 4-person press-up!

Red (11) - Disc Doctors (2)

Even before DD were on pitch the Red team looked very experienced, a characteristic that was only emphasised by their 3rd place seeding. On pitch they were better than on paper, making scoring look like child's play. The major difference of the Red team was their calm attitude and tremendous spirit, showing they deserved every point they scored. Playing a team like Red is more than a learning experience; it is a reminder of how top clubs should play. The determined Disc Doctors picked up the pace pushing to subdue the Red guys who were always one step ahead. Just when it looked as though one of Red's better positioned players, would get Stylish's overhead, Stas reached that tiny bit further beating his mark to score DD's 1st point. In the last minute, observers watched as three overhead attempts were intercepted by players one of which involved Stylish admirably prising the disc out of the air, sandwiched between two Red players. Finishing 11 - 2 to Red, both teams had had a fantastic game, which fortunately ended in time for everyone to head over to "the bar" to watch the football!

Whiplash (12) - Disc Doctors (2)

It was apparent for the previous game that Disc Doctors didn't have a foolproof plan to eliminated cheeky overhead passes and as Red had picked up on this, as did Whiplash. They sent direct passes to their players in the corners of the endzone who caught them with minimal fuss. As Whiplash went ahead Disc Doctors struggled with organisation that allowed a few silly points to be scored. The lack of good cuts from DD players made it a little hard for the DD handlers, but the guys still managed to score two points. The game ended with Disc Doctors in need of medical treatment caused by a good whipping! Nevertheless it was worth playing the team.

Airwolf (9) - Disc Doctors (5)

The crossover game of the day, which could have pulled DD out of the bottom group, was against the Ironman team (A team without substitutes), Airwolf. Unfortunately DD were on a bit of a low from the last two games. A fatal mistake that left them as easy targets for one of Airwolf's bigger guys. He was a similar build to K-man but with the height of Stylish, a bit of a monster if you ask me! Disc Doctors managed to shutdown the guy by running him out of position. As the Ironmen got worn down, DD got more enthusiastic as more and more chances came their way. Play was aggressive but safe and even included the odd ambitious throw. As DD came back Stylish threw an overhead pass with 10 seconds on the clock, which was magnificently caught by Matt right in the corner of the endzone. Although they had been beaten Doctors were still pleased with their monster comeback. Hats off to Airwolf who looked truly knackered!

The Party

As the games finished the whole team began to focus on party aspect of the tournament. Being a fun tournament everyone could let loose and party to the early hours! The guys went for a pre-party meal at Varsity, a Wetherspoons style pub on campus. With two dishes for £5, everyone had plenty of food and drink to make up for the energy exerted during the day. It was Boogie Nights at the union, with the DJ spinning up some classic disco/funk for the masses. The place was buzzing with more people than a night at LSE on a Friday, but due to the tremendous size of the union there was loads of space to sit and chill. In ultimate style Stas and Mathias did a 3-pint challenge in about 41 seconds. No-one really knew the time and the two were more wrecked than before, to know themselves! While Stas and Stylish were drinking double vodka redbulls by the gallon, the rest of DD were dancing and Mathias had hooked up … again. I got a text later that night to say he was staying with his Finnish friend … yeah dude, whatever :p! The night finished and everyone except Mathias piled in the cab back to our host, Sarah's house. We all sat around in her kitchen chatting and laughing at Stas and Stylish who were insulting each other whilst downing gallons of water. Stas kept calling Stylish "Fat Face" and Stylish kept replying with the patronising "Stanislav". Eventually everyone went bed on very comfortable cushions, except for George who ended up on his roll mat and Mary who got a bed! Cheeky!

Sunday

Everyone woke up at 8ish to a cup of tea from Sarah (Which was fantastic) and drearily packed up their stuff. Everyone headed, hangovers and all, by car to the sports centre in time for our first game at 9:20am. Stas had already decided he was still pissed and everyone else was still hanging apart from Sarah who had got more sleep staying at her cousin's house. Mind you, it didn't sound half as bad as the WAS team who had 3 out of their 6 people throw up before getting home, one of which was out of the window of the taxi (without the taxi driver knowing, more impressively) and one player who was so hanging they had sent their brother to play the first match on their behalf. It did take the team a while to explain that he wasn't allowed to push the opposition whilst marking them!

Disc Doctors (4) - Bears 4 (2)

Lets be blunt. We were hanging and weren't expecting too much from the first game of the day against Bears 4. There was much panting and numerous dodgy discs from both teams. DD did score early on, but also they had more chances that they should have scored from. Bears were trying hard but were often stopped early by DD players for a quick turnover and endzone attempt. Disc Doctors made lots of great interception D's but never really managed to take advantage of the increasing opportunities. The Disc Doctors did manage the win and both teams kept the call to non-energetic game of "John Wayne" and "Show".

Bears 3 (7) - Disc Doctors (6)

After Saturday's close game, Bears 3 were out for revenge and the team pulled no punches. It was everybody's last game of the tournament and the final aim was to come out fighting. DD started off calm and collected scoring 2 points from two good passes to Mathias followed by Stas. Sarah, Matt, Mary and George played their hearts out resisting the pressure from the cheering Bears crowd. With the score level at 5 all, "slogging your guts out" would have been an understatement of the intensity. The game was unbelievably tense as the scores matched at 6 - 6. Bears went ahead 7 - 6 with 30 seconds to go and despite their attempt, Disc Doctors just could not get the last point. A fantastic game, the best one of the tournament, just going to show that in Ultimate you should never give up, even if the game doesn't count for much. For the last call of the tournament Munky suggested a final game of Kabaddi to end a great weekend.

Everybody stayed around for the plate final between Venom 2 and Grizzlies (The Warwick Bears Ultimate Squad of 1985). Hey, did you know that in 1985 ...

• The stall count was to 15
• Bouncing discs off walls was allowed
• Using any kind of tactics was against the spirit of the game!

Thought I'd add that little bit of Ultimate trivia.

The final was between Vice and Flange. There was a lot of support for the Vice team who seemed much more respected than the aggressive Flange players.

With all games finished and the day over, all teams sat down for the presentation. Every team was given a bottle of Vodka to take home. Finally ranked 18 out of 20, Captain Stylish went up to collect the Disc Doctors' prized Vodka. With the spoon winners: WAS, plate winners: Grizzlies and the final winners Vice (by only 2 points) the group decided it had been a great weekend. Disc Doctors said their thanks to the hosts and picked up a much needed Burger King, before taking the train back to London in order to collapse!

Written by

Ian "Munky" Ballantyne