Birmingham Bike Polo Chat & BS Thread

It's £80 to fill my car up and I reckon it will use nearly an entire tank (going from a previous journey to Brighton). Maybe I drive faster or am significantly fatter than you?

£20 is still roughly 1/3rd of the price of the train, even if you book now, which shows how pointless trains are...

am considerably richer than you?

I can't help but imagine Harry Enfield when I read this post.

Check some LO pics here. https://secure.flickr.com/groups/2715439@N21/

Dan said petrol not diesel Neil... ;)

I think if dan put petrol in his car it would be even more expensive....

My sister is off to the US in a couple of weeks, shall I get her to bring some NAH balls back?

Which ones do we want?

Chris Swann found this ebay listing for an original polo bike.
Pretty weird set up - it looks like the spacing on the front forks and the dropouts is the same so you can swap the wheels over.

looks good! you'd want to put a new fork with brake mounts on though.

Just spoke with ChrisSwann about this on the way home, and I know it didn't work last time but maybe it's worth re-visiting:

We have a fairly large influx of new and enthusiastic players who all want to get better but there's no way to play competitive games at the moment (except Wrists/Troika). Could we try a winter league? ABC format and only 1-2 games per session so that the vast majority of games are still casual? Throw-ins are fun but it's sometimes good to just play to get a result rather than to have fun/experiment/dick around.

Dunno how the newer players would like this, but at least a few of them are quite team-orientated/results-driven and maybe this format would promote that attitude?

I'm not really wedded to the idea, but I like how more people are playing and I'd like to keep the newer people interested/motivated and progressing and I think sometimes that incessant throw-ins doesn't really help people move forward.

I'd prefer an individual league - that way we can use throw in teams all the time. Similar to the format thats planned for the ladies tourney next week?

That would be good too, but wouldn't foster teamwork in the way a 'team league' would. It would probably regress to the point where it's in every C-player's interest to sit back in goal and let their more experienced players battle for the win.

I don't know if newer players actually want it, but a team format would allow for A/B players to mentor their C teammate and hopefully help them improve as a team player rather than as an individual... There's still the danger of the above happening, but less so because you'd be spending a period of months playing together and the C-player would become more important/valuable over time.

We could also weight either format so that goals are worth differing amounts according to A/B/C ranking which would hopefully encourage C-players to get more involved all over the court rather than getting dumped in goal.

Could be a bit of a ballache to manage though.

3 points for a win, -3 for a loss, 1 point for a draw, the player with nearest to 0 wins.

I'd prefer a team league too. I think we can trust each other not to leave weaker players in goal.

If I'm playing with Neil I promise to let him out at least twice a game.

Im up for it too.

And happy to run things. I'll post up a proposal or something and anyone else who has an idea can do the same (like london) then we can vote on it.

I'm definitely interested in something like this, I'm also always happy to help with admin. Maybe we should have a separate league for polo admin...and then I can win!

Too slow Kat!

Polo Admin League:

1. Neil
   
2. Kat
   
3. Matt
   
4. Everyone else.
   
   

I'm more your blue-sky, thow-shit-up-the-flagpole, dreamer of dreams than polo administrator.

My work here is done...

Ok Winter League Proposal.

We have an odd number of regular players so I have decided to organise, ref and record results instead of playing.

I haven't included Asim, Irial and Jez either as they aren't playing as often as all the others, but if people feel that we should make a fifth team and include them and myself then we can.

The teams have been split as fairly as possible from my opinion rather than an ABC split as there was too much cross over. Let me know if you strongly object to the teams and we can look at switching them around.

I'm pretty certain I haven't missed anybody, but let me know if I have.
I'll make prizes for the winners too and record everything on this cool Google doc. I might also add some extra things, like best goalie, goal of season etc. before we start - If you have any ideas for this let me know.

We could use Dan's idea of different points for different players, but this might be easier discussed in person (at Tuesday's meeting or at polo) as it has a few complications too tough to explain on here.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eJRgeC80u00UyUBxzSm9RJFZnpgGHvD2rYZhnw0DcbE/edit#gid=0

I like that system Matt, it gets my vote. I'm happy with the teams from my perspective too.

I'll be on holiday from the 12th-31st October though, so I wouldn't be able to make the first three games.

Looks great Matt! So long as you don't mind not playing, seems a bit unfair (but on the plus side I think it would move you to the top of the admin league!)

Looks good Matt! I guess you'll be the super sub?

Yeah looks really good. Only things I think need a bit of discussion are a) schedule/dates, b) substitutes and c) no playing Matt.

It might be more practical to allow inter-team subbing so long as they are similar ability. Combined with the standard 2/3rds rule it would hopefully mean games could get played in a timely manner.

When/where is Tuesday's meeting?

The Highbury, Dads lane, 7:30pm Tomorrow
Vagina Fest 2014 meeting

Yeah there were a few things I thought about straight after I posted it up so I'll get those added tomorrow. Namely schedule, because the current schedule would mean we would need all 12 players to be there every Sunday between October and Feb - which ain't gunna happen.

Perhaps we can just have deadlines for when each game needs to be played by.

Not sure if i can make the meeting tonight (unless it moves somewhere child friendly), but I'd propose swapping Matt for myself as I have the highest Flake potential at the moment. I'd be happy to be the super sub/ref when I'm around.