Cambridge Polo

You will never believer, the time we had in Geneva.

A wondrous domain of smart watches and tolerant motorists , where you can even drink the water from the sewers .
Now gather round your monitors my children and let me tell you the news of our travel to this fabled land .
As God's chosen representatives of the subtle art of Mallet and bike , the Ninja ,Proper-job and i packed our precious sports equiptment into borrowed bike bags and took our chances in an Easyjet 737.

We arrived quite late in the evening and hastily assembled our bikes and stashed their bags into lockers at the airport. It was dark and Geneva was throbbing like a wounded generator . The city was alive with disc-wheeled velo-polo combantants hastily crisscrossing its narrow backstreets . Scattered along the lake side like the bejeweled contents of a tarts handbag , Geneva's hot, scented opulence beguiled our innocent, simple fen bound minds . 
Late and confused, we managed to meet up with a few weary throw in die hards at the courts before almost immediately again setting off in search of precious accommodation . Forty riders, maybe more, trying to look cool whilst legs spinning almost uncontrollably . Weighed down with heavy packs and bristling with mallet handles . Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, Clement led this happy troupe of children up the hill, blissfully following him into a solid concrete hole in the hillside. 

Inside we all fell silent ,the bunker was built during a time of fear , so we felt it only natural that we should too . Our fear was for the sweaty trainer ,the snoring goalie and the wind of the bowel .

Morning , and the first day of the tournament . Set in a Disney style school and basket ball courts beside a park and the lakeside , we were humbled and awed by its magnificence . Bike Polo is normally played in the most deprived urban areas , it took ages to find somewhere in Cambridge where we could encounter vandalism and graffiti and the local kids didn't resemble characters from Just William. This was something special .

Everywhere Poloists were mingling , nationalities from all over europe . Different languages , accents and HDPE piping flowed together into a crowd of anticipation . Teams of gladiators ready to pursue the red franklin through flailing 7075 tubing and spinning corroplast . Hardcourt hitting , tarmac skidmarking ,the cities elite . What were we doing here ?
Group stages , we were on last so tried to settle our nerves by watching a few games . It seemed that the games had become faster and pacey , with more and more players chosing freewheels and only the very stubborn played fixed wheel . With 3 courts to chose from , it was hard to choose which game not to see. Everywhere was quality teams . Lots of new cities and teams from last years tournament in London too.

Eventually our turn came, and first was a Parisien Team "Marteau" . We adopted our traditional tried and tested game plan . Send out the lefties and i'll sit in goal . Will and Hayden wove their unique brand of Polo , which seems to confound the traditional expectations of what is good . Someone at the tournament remarked on Will's playing style . Explaining that it seems strange that someone obviously playing for the first time should have such an uncanny knack of scoring . Hayden was covering a lot of the court and whipping in shots from the left and we seemed to be doing quite well.
We played the German champions, Polosynthese . Two young chaps and a female perma-goalie, one lefty and one righty who played in channels either side of the court and hit the ball very hard and accurately whilst sprinting towards you. Only 18 years old these young pups seemed like the future of bike polo .Like Hanson on PCP they would destroy you if given the room . We were lucky to get a draw through intimidation , gypsy curses and parking behind their keeper.

Find out what happened next.

The 2nd installment will be read at the court tuesday evening .