Tourney: EHBPC 2014 - Padova 25/29 June

This one?
http://instagram.com/p/puXc-WA5a8/

Great introduction to international tournaments for me and one I won't forget.

Thanks Fin and Mya, you rock. Best ranked female player ftw.

Had a great time in Italy it was great to see everyone again. UK polo was in full force and I was really impressed with everyone's play. A shame the Break Up lost to TD in the end, football chants were so very LAD of us. #thatgame

Organisation was great in some aspects but lacking in others. I hope EHBPC 2015 is different. Tim & Fin you were a great reffing combo (and even better triple d'ers) apologies for shouting when you disallowed seven goals during the finals. Thanks everyone who cheered and abused, it kept me going.

Although Saturday night was lacking Peregrine won MVP (most valuble partiers)

Highlights -

Tim Timmeny / Inter-fucking-fraction etc

I wanna hear all the verses!

I wanna hear all the verses!

Inter fucking ference inter fucking ference, la la la la oooh! la la la la ooh!

Refer to this for Tim timmeny.
Mary Poppins - Chim Chimney [AMV] - YouTube

Tim timmeny Tim timmeny Tim Tim ta roo!
He lives on a boat and refs the euros.
Tim timmeny Tim timmeny Tim Tim at roo!
He wears hipster glasses and maybe you should too
Lyrics/music J.Marshall 2014

Too funny.

Thanks to Fin and Tim for getting me that highest-ranked girl prize!

Yep I'll keep you one Matt and I've got more Good Luck and Peregrine (Ka-Kaw) tshirts if anyone's interested

I'll take a peregrin one too.
And for that price, well don't let somebody steal it from you. You deserved it. Tim and Fin were just riding in circles while you kept the goal empty. And you had the second best chance against CMD, have it on tape.

Call Me Daddy showed a lot of character to still take the win after having so many goals disallowed (#bestrefever).

Mad props to Luca. Top shelf for days.

Why were goals disallowed?

Why were goals disallowed?

Inter fucking ference inter fucking ference, la la la la oooh! la la la la ooh!

Call Me Daddy showed a lot of character…

And for putting up with the relentless heckling. At one point I thought Badger had suffered a stroke and got stuck on loop.

Best UK vibe for a long time but yes the tournament was a let down in various ways; referring to extremely poor reffing and unsafe courts mostly.

Also agree with Yorgo that we need to get these tournaments down to two days again. This is an amateur sport still. If we keep making tournaments longer we will start to lose some of our good players because they simply can't invest the time.

And where's that polo chants thread? I penned a masterpiece on my commute yesterday.

bikepolo vienna uploaded videos of the final games on their fb-page

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=307444016090245&set=vb.131459153688733&type=2&theater

More to follow.

Thanks for that... Tho' the shaky camera's making me seasick... :)

Hey I'll print some more t-shirts cos I'm out of Peregrine Mediums.
Good Luck is what you see and Peregrine can be either black on a white t-shirt or yellow on a black t-shirt. Let me know which you want and your size and I'll get it sorted. TA

£10

boags - peregrine T (small) please

Depends on how you define disallowed. It was very hard to hear the whistle so a fair few were after a foul had been called.

JoeSlain: Peregrine Black Large

Cheers, Mya!

And where's that polo chants thread? I penned a masterpiece on my commute yesterday.

Me and Robbie came up with a good'un for Josh.

''Josh Meyland - Meyland, he's big and he's fucking hard. He hit's 'em from his own half, Josh Meyland Meyland' - Repeat accordingly

Sung to the tune of '"Que Sera, Sera''

Yeah, moar football chants!

so much fun on finals day, i'll be singing inter-fucking-ference for days to come. what a rowdy bunch we were.

Peregrine Shirts:
Boagey - Small
TS: Large Black
John H: Large Black

Peregrine Shirts:
Boagey - Small
TS: Large Black
John H: Large Black
Chan: Medium Black

Peregrine Shirts:
Boagey - Small
TS: Large Black
John H: Large Black
Chan: Medium Black
Josh: Large Black

Peregrine Shirts:
Boagey - 17 medium black
TS: Small extra bright white
John H: Medium string best
Chan: Large Blue
Josh: Small pink

Inter-fucking-ference, inter-fucking-ference!

Maddie and I were in Venice so went along to padova to watch the final day on saturday which was fucking fun. Heres a writeup for those who didnt get to see it.

We got to the courts just as Peregrine started their 5-0 destruction of Bambule with Mat and Cam's attacking instincts being held together well by Chris. So, a sweet start to the day, especially with the UK contingent Kawkawing in support from the sidelines. The Break Up were also looking superstrong, beating up some very good teams like Cool Story Bro, Scallywags and others very convincingly with big, spectacular shots from Josh and fast passing polo from Jono and Hayden meaning that they deservedly finished the top ranked UK team.

I didnt see enough of the UK Champs, Mondial but they played 3 out, resolutely looking to play good, passing polo in the face of plenty of negative Euro double goalie stuff. Unfortunately this often meant that teams would just double goalie and then try and take their chances with long shots. This meant that games were perhaps tighter than they should have been with the quality of players on this team. The introduction of a crease would make this kind of play deadly however and it would be great to see.

The level of polo on show has surely never been higher with CMD and Edisons perhaps a level above the rest but the next 9/10 teams all could have rounded out the podium. Whoever and Sophie were tough, gritty teams that knocked out Mondial and Peregrine on Golden Goals after #ourbraveboys had been ahead in both games only for unlucky errors to cost them. Unlucky guys, you both looked set to go much further.

The Swiss showed a serious return to Euros form after last year's no show with Outlaws MF (guest starring Dodi) and Wolfgang playing some top polo as well as True Danger who, along with Edisons were the best to watch. These two teams both played fast, direct and super clean polo. Alex (True Danger) was next level, pulling some incredible stuff out of the bag to the chants of 'MVP, MVP' and Edisons did as they always do: exciting, tough and clean polo with Mo's shot even more destructive than Josh's, Eddy hustling hard in defence as well as making some brilliant attacking plays, and David the glue that held them together, playing brilliantly and barely a single foul play from him. What a team.

1st favourite game of the day was The Break Up vs True Danger (Loser's Bracket Semi final). one side of the court was full of French fans, the other was the Brits (with some Germans) and it was like a football game as chants (the big break, various Warin chants, your support is fucking shit etc etc) went back and forth over a frenetic game of class polo. Josh's shot was hard at work (as was his middle finger - aimed at the French heckles) pushing The Break Up into a good lead but Alex made some unbelievable plays to leave it 5-4 to TD. Such, such good polo.

By now everyone who was not playing are pretty smashed, not least Rob snottyotter who took his clothes off far too many times....

With Call Me Daddy looking almost totally unbeatable with their unspectacular but effective play, the winners bracket final was the first time they looked shaky as Edisons went ahead. CMD looked down but in a game that was at times hovering on the edge of the legal, they levered themselves back to parity before Luca's 3 goals in a row saw off that first challenge.

This set the tone for the Final finals though (after Edisons negotiated their way past a classy True Danger) as CMD struggled with Edisons' top play and began to get very very dirty. Everyone was now absolutely bollocksed and the UK contingent were leading the CMD heckling, partly fed by everyones' desire to have a new champion and partly due to the difference of polo styles. Luca especially was playing out of his skin although mixing in some consistent and dangerous foul play. Tim Warin, #bestrefever was having to call up CMD more and more regularly for foul play and had to dissallow some goals but Edisons forced a second final.

The second final was played under floodlights, with some fucking good (and loud) drummers, someone let off a flare while the crowd was so loud, Ref Tim needed a microphone to be heard and the players could barely hear the whistle over the chanting. Edisons went ahead with Mo's ridiculous shots keeping hitting the back of the net. CMD had yet more goals disallowed as they got pulled up more and more for foul play. The crowd were going nuts with the UK contingent even louder than the Germans, especially heckling the pantomime villain of the day, Luca for his constant infringements.

Chief warin eventually had enough and rightly hauled Luca off for what has to be the first 30 second penalty in a major final ever (?). CMD held firm though and Edisons couldnt profit and began to look like they were running out of steam. CMD scored again and again to the dulcet tones of Chan and Badger screaming 'inter fucking ference, inter fucking ference na naa naa na' etc. Guess who scored the final goal? Luca, rising above it netted to give CMD a third consecutive title. Despite the foul play etc, you have to hand it to them to keep up that level of excellence for so long. Next year Euro polo really needs someone to come and take it off them...

Then we all got wankered, various people passed out, threw up, danced, hayden put a tarp over his head and rode into a tent, numerous times, Tim climbed the floodlight pole, we stole beer from the beer tent as hayden taunted the security guy until he called his scary skinhead mates who kicked us out

good times...