We went, we saw some balls, we got some balls, then we threw some balls, scored with our balls and saw also that some teams had more sets of balls than we did. We were at BUSA polo……
More photos from Dom at Facebook After a feast of uncooked beef and pork sausages in jimbobs house the night before, we crawled out of sleeping bags as dawn was breaking, and all our boats then preceded to fail the scrutineering….. a few promises of seeing our balls later on and breakfast bribes consisting of chocolate covered balls in milk in a ball (bowl-sorry i’m northern), we were allowed to continue down to the pitch to begin the onslaught.
The first group game saw us get the biggest anhililation we’ve ever had, giving Nottingham good games in our previous meetings, they kept the ball the whole game and preceded to put it in our net lots of times.
nottingham 9-0 liverpool
Our second game we remembered what we were supposed to be doing, and a fine display from the whole team and some of our best movement of the tournament, saw us convincingly beat the Brums to put us threw to the next round of the competition.
Birmingham 0-1 Liverpool (convincing!!)
In the Ladies group stages, we did rather better in winning 2 out of the 3 games, only Birmingham humbling us, and loads of dubious songs from the sidelines later, we emerged second in the group!
Next came Cardiff and our bid for the top 8! A valiant display later, and being one of only 2 teams to score against them in the whole tournament, shook them up at half time, trailingj ust 2-1. but then their substitutes and fiberglass showed and they dominated the second half.
Cardiff 4-1 Liverpool
Our Ladies, then playing Durham, winners of their group and eventually third placed, put up a bloody good fight, star performances from Charlotte and Cath, steering the vastly inexperienced team, to a good battle of plastic versus gold-encrusted-diamond-whittled-carbon-kevlar-alloyed-speedboats. The money and experience told, and Durham prevailed…..
It then gets a bit hazy, due to the vast amounts of alcohol consumption, and large platefuls of goodness in my stomach, but i vaguely remember sitting on top of our mini-bus singing - i’d rather have a shower than a lloyd! and then regaining consciousness in drips and drabs throughout the night, finding myself up a tree, and then losing consciousness again as i hit the ground and my waiting beer-bottle! Various phonecalls and bit of a sleep later, we found ourselves once again on the polo pitch, or rather most of the team did, as i was helping out by reffing….!!
In a final blow to our bid for any respectable place in the table, we faced sheffield to challenge for nineth spot, and after missing the first half, due to said refereeing duties, we continued to take them apart, yet couldn’t seem to get those balls where we wanted them!
Sudden death ensued, and a feeble shot and a fine deflection from my paddle, steered the ball around dom’s paddle and gung ho, sheffield won golden goal.
Sheffield 2-1 Liverpool
Next were ULU. Another really close game, inwhich we dominated, but yet again, those balls were not co-operating. Another golden goal loss in extra time.
ULU 3-2 Liverpool
devastated.
Liverpool Open team finished up in 15th after beating Swansea 1-0 relatively easily, another golden wondergoal from nick finished off a well won match to a disappointing final position in the table. A year later and we’ll be back……
Our ladies had a better second day, beating the likes of manchester, and loughborough convincingly, before finally meeting Bath, and due to exhaustion were at last gotten the better of, to finish a hugely respectable 10th place.
We haven’t seen the last of these wee lassies, they’ll be back
The old gits, marred by injury with exploding teeth and other very dubious excuses for being injured, did well to actually turn up with raised chins to look at death and defeat in the eye! and after appealing to the crowd for random volunteers, managed to scrounge a team of relics together. Needless to say, they got hammered by Britain’s best wheelchair folk, but managed to stay off the foot of the table by ensuring Bath were disqualified. Really good to watch though guys, and boy did you put up a fight…
A fantastic weekend in all i think, everything went smoothly, beer definately flowed like the canoeing weekends we’re used to, and even though our “squad” consisted of a broken finger, 2 dislocated shoulders and a wookie, we still managed to field three strong teams. We did play some good-looking polo in places and next year (same as this year) will be a completely different story!
Thankyou to everyone who made it happen, jimbob for food, vanny and dom for driving and anyone else who had a part in making fun.
until next year…..
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