Tourney: ECMC, Berlin 28.05.09 - 01.06.09

The reason the polo tournamen was chaotic was because the organisation was not as good as it should have been, NOT because it was a messenger champs.

Last year at ECMC in Eindhoven, the polo tournament (like everything else in Eindhoven) was brilliantly well organised. The Berliners was just badly organised, and I am sure we can all think of polo tournaments that weren't organised by messengers that were badly organised. So please don't blame the bad organisation on messengers.

Or I'll get really cross and won't speak to any of you again.

Don't kid yourselves - London won't win a damn thing until we learn to play as a team. BAD are the only team in London that are capable of matching the best Euro and American teams. Unless we all learn to play properly, even BAD won't stand a chance, because they won't be playing against good teams week in week out.

We need team nights now, if we won't don't want the rest of Europe to come to London and humiliate us in our town.

Sitting Ducks did ok, but when we went up against the Munich B Team, we went down 5-1. They out passed us, intercepted everything, and although Stephane did a fantastic job in goal, even he couldn't keep them out.

And that was the B team!

This is very quickly starting to sound like high school football or something. Humiliated in our own town?

I like polo.

I don't even like polo.

Fixed.

don't worry, we can bamboozle the international teams into letting us win with our intricately pointless 'grand-in-the-fence-team-shuffle' technique.
they won't know whats hit them.

This is very quickly starting to sound like high school football or something. Humiliated in our own town?

You enjoy getting grannied?

Not really, but I wouldn't be humiliated if I was (or, should I say, when I am).

• this was the proof that "old" players can still kick ass! Thanks bill for being a great teammate.
  
  

Yes mate! Old polo players rule! And thanks again for playing for the Ducks. It was an honour to have you on the team!

Mark, I like polo too, and seen all the London teams out before quarter finals was not fun

Wanting to be better if fine (better than fine!). I was just commenting on the tone of the thread. Was sounding a bit jocky!

Had a brilliant weekend, organisation sucked, and the ref couldn't count scores, so we got knocked out when we shouldn't have been. But despite this, it was great to play with lots of different people.

To clarify: in that game, I was sure that the score was 3-2 for Tres Amigos - absolutely positive. Then the stand-in ref started finally started using the score-board, and he made the score 2-2. Then TA scored a couple of goals, and should have won.

Mind you, the funniest part of my weekend was in the Ducks Malice game when they called game (with Ducks the winners at 5-4), and we all just kept playing, having totally lost track of the score, and thinking it was still 4-4... I think we probably played for 2 minutes or so until Morgan yelled 'what do I have to get you guys to stop? Send you a text!'

All in all, I had a great time - sharing with Tres Amigos was fantastic fun (apart from the farting - Gabes and Rik, what happened? did a rat crawl up your arse and die or something?), great to see some really great polo players (some of whom also did the main race, and were playing on their race bikes with their race-course maps still attached), and watch a really high standard of play in the final. And hang out with a lot of my old messenger mates, and make some new ones.

I just think it's hard to play as a solid team when it's not a 'proper' team.
There's so many different style players in London.
I don't think we can expect to get so far having put teams together just before a tournament.

I agree, BAD have the experience and would've had the best chance to get to the final.
Though without team nights or a league, even BAD are losing out on experience.

Btw, how's Mikey, Bill?

Btw, how's Mikey, Bill?

Collar-bone broken. 6-8 weeks out. Not good.

I know it's his own fault cos he was drunk and fell, but there's an alleycat next Friday which is probably going to end up being a fund-raiser for him. So come and enter, even if you have no intention of racing.

Good news on the fundraiser. Was hoping he'd have recourse to not-so-pubic funds of some sort.

"someone is blessed.."?? --- I want to say injured, not blessed. But blessé is french and i am back in france.

I knew EXACTLY what you meant!

The best thing about these international events is the language jam! I was speaking french to germans, spanish to english, what a scream!

Good news on the fundraiser. Was hoping he'd have recourse to not-so-pubic funds of some sort.

Nope. The LCEF doesn't pay-out for 'Friday night face' style injuries.

This is very quickly starting to sound like high school football or something. Humiliated in our own town?

I like polo.

dude with talk like that, you'll never be elected homecoming king.

Pix from david (Berlin).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davesan/sets/72157618983045471/
I'll get some up soon.

repost.

The reason the polo tournamen was chaotic was because the organisation was not as good as it should have been, NOT because it was a messenger champs.

Last year at ECMC in Eindhoven, the polo tournament (like everything else in Eindhoven) was brilliantly well organised. The Berliners was just badly organised, and I am sure we can all think of polo tournaments that weren't organised by messengers that were badly organised. So please don't blame the bad organisation on messengers.

Or I'll get really cross and won't speak to any of you again.

Bill, I disagree. Look at the ECMC website. Is there any mention of the polo results? The only reason registration stayed open until the tournament was scheduled to begin was because Bregan insisted on it. Friday night there were 24 teams. Matt V and myself sorted the format for them based on 24. I was at the polo registration table at 11 saturday morning with 30+ teams registered when at least 4 more teams rolled up and asked about registration. Did even most of the 18 teams that registered from Friday night to Saturday morning show up? No. Were they pretty much all exclusively messenger teams? Yes.

True, Miguel was only planning to use the two courts. He also wasn't planning on the additional teams to register. He didn't have the help allocated already nor the support from the ecmc on a whole to deal with this surge. He did what he could to maintain and tried to keep the ecmc happy (I know, a mistake on his part but it's still the principle) by trying to allow any ecmc registered messenger team play in the tournament.

All this is down to the fact that the polo at the European Cycle Messenger Championships was a messenger side event to a messenger race. It doesn't matter if it was Berlin that was disorganised, they're still messengers. Eindhoven are the exception, not the standard. Basically the exact same thing happened in Toronto last year at the CMWC (cycle MESSENGER world champs...).

Go ahead and get cross. I'll still drink your beer and occasionally buy you one as well.

I'm sure Munich will be much more organised. I'm gutted I won't be there.

BTW Bill, what happened at the prize giving/bidding for the next ECMC's?

I've heard rumors, now I want it from the Buffalo's mouth, so to speak.

I just think it's hard to play as a solid team when it's not a 'proper' team.
There's so many different style players in London.
I don't think we can expect to get so far having put teams together just before a tournament.

I agree, BAD have the experience and would've had the best chance to get to the final.
Though without team nights or a league, even BAD are losing out on experience.

+1 sign me up for team nights.