Tourney: 2009-10-17/18 - BFF Paris Polo Tourney

Yorgo Touplas, have you apologised to the rest of London yet, for giving away all of our ski poles???

Adam, the Northern Rock in goal, He's better than horatio!

He-Bass.

Hairy-Emilie

OH GUYYYYS !

Thank SO MUCH for helping.

Thanks to Luis for accomodation and his help.
Thanks to him and Adam for being awesome team mates.
Thanks to Karlsruhe helped me for the Saturdays groups and building court 2
Thanks to Edouard, Nicolas, Luis, Jude, Mathieu x2, Dale, Ronan, Hugo, all the ones I forget for helping building court 1.
Thanks to Matt, Andy, Brailey (spelled right ?sorry) "big up to you for the final ref", Iain, Roxy & Mike, Kevin for helping for this first 24 team bracket.
Thanks to Emilie, Gabes, Stephane and all of you helping as refs.
Huge thanks for your help after sundays games on game 2.
Thanks to Mathieu, Thanh, Greg and Thomas for taking care of removing court 1.
Thanks to Alex, Adrien, Stephane, Nicolas and Luis for helping me create Paris Bike Polo, the first hardcourt bike polo club in Paris.

And a final thanks to everyone coming, playing and cheering !

I maybe organized it but you made it happen.

Yorgo Touplas, have you apologised to the rest of London yet, for giving away all of our ski poles???

Isn't titanium the better option now?

I do remember when Yorgo put the poles down he was going round checking all the London players who were at court 1 had got one.

cute picture of sarah.

don't you mean this kid?

he was so cool. anyone who was on court 2 for the first day may have missed this team play - he was the goalie and his team-mates (dad?) i think are grass polo players!

Dbl post

ONE POINT TWENTY ONE GIGAWATTS??!?!??!@!@!!

October 18, 2009 we're taking you Chan.... To the Future!

The flux capacitor epilogue Chan had following Brendt's bus story was probably the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. I may have a hernia.

eh?

he was so cool. anyone who was on court 2 for the first day may have missed this team play - he was the goalie and his team-mates (dad?) i think are grass polo players!

yes, he plays with his dad.
look here: http://esgl.polo-velo.net

epic picture sarah looks so proud of her stud. Clemonts Claret explosion!

ONE POINT TWENTY ONE GIGAWATTS??!?!??!@!@!!

October 18, 2009 we're taking you Chan.... To the Future!

The flux capacitor epilogue Chan had following Brendt's bus story was probably the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. I may have a hernia.

i can verify, brendt got merked.

awesome weekend. lovely times, playing polo, as always.

1:23 - BAM! Lovin' the slow-mo at the end…

http://vimeo.com/7146934

Some epic goal-scoring in that vid too!

I think you have to click his name for his full tweets..

http://twitter.com/chukker_norris

Haha. There is a series of tweets that did not go out to the hashtag #tbpl or #bikepolo (but can be seen on the link above). those are from when sarah and dave had my phone while malice was playing. nice one.

awesome weekend. great polo games all day sunday afternoon. thanks Marc and Louis David and paris and Euro bike polo. Props to Braley for expert line reffing and etc. all day sunday.

L'Equipe was even better this time when we played them (but their time will come soon ...)

I guess after Metz, Schindel and Shone turned the Clowns into jokers maybe Hannes will reconsider that freewheel.

Props to Toros for knocking L'Equipe into the loser's bracket. They were on fire with Pablo coming out more and sharing time with Andy in goal.

They were on fire with Pablo coming out more and sharing time with Andy in goal.

could this be because Andy broke his frame on saturday, and the new one on sunday was way to small for him?

I just came from Paris on the Eurostar with all of you team ; )

Great weekend! Hassan (and Emma) found a great apartment in the 4th arr., 10 minutes ride from the court. Vidal kept everyone awake on Friday night with championship-level snoring.

Saturday qualifiers were fun; 6 groups of 6, with top four from each going through. Sunday was a 24 team double elimination, so the top 8 teams from Saturday got a first game bye (DTGP, toros, lequipe, apologies accepted, zombie, clowns, netto, malice).

There were two courts, a two minute ride between them. Malice only played on the court in the school ground; it was pretty small, comparable to Downham, maybe narrower, with a few steps and things, but it was actually pretty decent to play. I proudly take responsibility for the only window breakage.

It was really nice to see lots of familiar faces and to play some great teams – feels like the standard of play is increasing. There was also lots of chat about who will host the Euros and even the Worlds next year …

L’equipe were pretty incredible, coming back to win the final, twice!

Marc, Luis and Adam, if you see this, thanks for our 4-5 game, it was loads of fun. And Marc (and Luis, and Braley, and everyone who pitched in to help), thanks for organising a great weekend.

I proudly take responsibility for the only window breakage.

Ha, then you tried to get the goal ref to call it a goal! ROFL.

if rik says a broken valve is worth more than a goal, then a window is like a whole game.

The atmosphere was awesome as usual. I don't think you could ever get a terrible weekend with this many polo people. The settings were picturesque as you can only have in Paris.

But...

The actual tournament itself... not so. Iain's description of court 2 above is pretty accurate, but the other court was total shit. On Saturday there was absolutely no organisation, no line reff'ing until Brayley stepped up and assumed responsibility, no goal reffing until Roxy did the same. Changing the rules mid-day is bad enough but to do it only on one court and not let the other court know...? One court was made of ped barriers and what seemed like balsa wood with plastic sheeting covering the goal ends. The ball would pop out mid court every 2 seconds, worse than Brick Lane used to be. By the middle of the first day the wood behind the goals was in splinters leaving the legs of the barriers sticking out yet still covered in plastic so you couldn't see them to dodge them (one of which I endo'd on and bent my forks). Not to mention the rough wall with stone window ledges sticking out at head height.

Fuck Nike. (If Nike sponsors a polo tournament there should at least be decent courts.)

I won't say well done Paris but will say well done London for taking care of business.
Basically I feel as though half of London polo just paid to travel to Paris, paid €20/each to enter and organise a tournament.

All in all, I had a great weekend but playing polo wasn't fun.

You should have come to philly, see how those Americans do it. ;)

;1015820']The atmosphere was awesome as usual. I don't think you could ever get a terrible weekend with this many polo people. The settings were picturesque as you can only have in Paris.

But...

The actual tournament itself... not so. Iain's description of court 2 above is pretty accurate, but the other court was total shit. On Saturday there was absolutely no organisation, no line reff'ing until Brayley stepped up and assumed responsibility, no goal reffing until Roxy did the same. Changing the rules mid-day is bad enough but to do it only on one court and not let the other court know...? One court was made of ped barriers and what seemed like balsa wood with plastic sheeting covering the goal ends. The ball would pop out mid court every 2 seconds, worse than Brick Lane used to be. By the middle of the first day the wood behind the goals was in splinters leaving the legs of the barriers sticking out yet still covered in plastic so you couldn't see them to dodge them (one of which I endo'd on and bent my forks). Not to mention the rough wall with stone window ledges sticking out at head height.

Fuck Nike. (If Nike sponsors a polo tournament there should at least be decent courts.)

I won't say well done Paris but will say well done London for taking care of business.
Basically I feel as though half of London polo just paid to travel to Paris, paid €20/each to enter and organise a tournament.

All in all, I had a great weekend but playing polo wasn't fun.

I don't feel resentful about paying €20, I got a sweet t-shirt, and played some great polo, on both courts. You make do with what's offered, that's how you roll when you got to someone else's event. You don't jump up on stage at a concert and re-tune someone's guitar, do you?

I did lots of reffing both days, I enjoyed it. I had a goal dissallowed the second day because of the on/off balljoint rule, but actually, the geneva goal ref and luis the main ref both called the goal, It was a LONDONER who called it a non-goal. That says a more about us as a community than paris.