The Polo Diaries

Whilst in Karlsruhe for the Greif Masters I kept a diary.
Aufbruch mentioned it might be the kind of thing he'd like to read - journals, stories from tourneys, road trips etc.

I'll start with my diary, then let's have your tales...

Greif Masters 2, February 2011

Wednesday

Not the most auspicious of starts to the expedition. Binned it on the way to work (yeah, thanks dude in the BMW...) and generally felt nervous as hell all day.
Lunch with the missus helped, as did a couple of ales at The Sheffield Tap with Dalestar...
Things improved when I reached London though. Good to see Gormley again and talking poloshit helped me relax no end. Good feelings about the days ahead...

Thursday

Up after about 5 hours sleep to meet Gormley's cat and the taxi. Whilst lugging the bike about in a bag ain't great, it makes taxis much easier and chucking it on the train was pretty painless too. Team London's on board - Mrak, Lal, Max, Snoops, Josh + Cam. The early start is offset beautifully by the sunrise over Kent.
/Just rolled into Gare du Nord. Discovered there's a Eurostar loco called "The Da Vinci Code" pukesoncock.
/We meet up with Agata and (eventually, having eyed up many a luggage trolley) head to Gare de l'Est. Here I find breakfast and settle into the kind of ample seating that UK folks pay first class money for.The guards' uniforms are pretty dapper too, especially the French.
Having left clear skies behind in GB we speed our slightly foggy way through Alsace to Strasbourg, before decamping at Karlsruhe where our bikes are rebuilt to the intrigue of the other denizens of the Hauptbahnhof.

We're met by Oli, who guides us to his flat...

...and plies us with beer, cheese and bread. Win. Oli then heads off to France to buy bottled water (there's no deposit on the bottles in France). We get ourselves lost in Karlsruhe before settling down for pils, pool and curry from a local health food place. A brief interlude at Oli's is then followed by a trip to The Bunker, where we (entirely selflessly!) finish off two kegs of beer in order to create tap-out points for the tourney.

It's a strange world in The Bunker where time is lost all to easily, and we emerge into the wee hours to finally crash at Steffen's, an ace guy who threatens us with being on court at 10.30am. Thankfully, we all oversleep...

Friday

Steffen rouses us a bit after 10.00am and we slowly shower, coffee and breakfast ourselves. We all cycle Messe-wards. I take charge of the map after about three blocks and don't relinquish it throughout our headwind-blasted trip. Lantern rouge Mat makes a good case for clipless pedals...
Greif Masters 2 is the entertainment portion for some outdoorsy trade show. A bit odd.
Slowly the rest of team Rest Of England (and Wales) arrives. we're soon kitted out in our team shirts and don't have too long before we're up against Squadra Italia.

The Romans play a pretty physical brand of polo, but we build up an early lead that despite a late rally by the Italians gives us an 8-7 win, including a sweet goal by myself from distance (thus achieving my personal goal for the entire tournament).
We see a few more chukkers before our second game, this time versus Germany. A cosmopolitan line up of Woody (MCR), Mat (LDN) and myself (SHF) storm out against the brownshirts and build up a 4-0 lead. The Germans then bring on their A-Team and soon the game is in the balance. David and Mo (Polosynthese) are deadly! It ends up 11-9 to Germany. Having stayed sober thus far, I hit up the cheap beers laid on for the poloistas before everyone decamps to KAP where we refuel on Käsespätzle (the local version of macaroni cheese) and more pils before heading for our lodgings.

Saturday

Not a bad night's sleep. Ben (Punkture) turned up a little after we turned in, so we've now got a full team! Early start today, so we'd best get rolling...
/Team ROE (or at least five of them) struggled through headwinds to die Messe. We're on first, but (team captain) Chan had to do his mane, so we picked a starting three and went 2-0 up on Benelux before the latecomers rocked up.

We pile on the goals to run out 13-7 winners. Not bad on a breakfast of an espresso and a Coke...
Time for a butty before our next opponents, Spain. Everyone was expecting a pretty physical game, but it was pretty clean apart from one guy who was a dick. The lead see-saws, but eventually we go down 11-9.
Update on David and Mo (Friday): They scored 9 of Germany's 11 against us yesterday!
It's a loooooooooooooooooong day. I mooch, I eat, I drink, I mooch some more. I get free coffee for being such a loyal customer! We end the day's polo playing Karlsruhe, who gain their first point of the tourney by holding us to a draw, before we put in a respectable turn against the Swiss.
Unfortunately, whilst all this fun was going on, my bag went walkies with my passport in it. Fuck. The evening is spent alternately on the phone receiving emergency advice and drowning my sorrows...

Sunday

A late start for Team ROE today, but I'm up and out pretty early in search of my AWOL luggage. No-one at the court has seen it, so with a load of help from Jette (Steffen's wife) I enlist Yorgo (chauffeur) and Daniel (translator) for a trip to der Polizei.
We make it back a little late for the game against France, which we lose, but not disastrously. It's then make-or-break against London - they need a win to climb above us in the table. They make a strong start and we never really recover so we end up 6th overall. At the final whistle we take our revenge, brawling with the Southerners - Brendan seems to get singled out for some 'special attention'... So much fun.
The final is France vs. Switzerland, two really strong teams. The Swiss play well together and are super-controlled, but France play with a real hunger.

It's all square at half time and the teams trade goals until 3 minutes to go, when the French, led by Marc Sich pull out a three goal lead and take the title.
Prizes are given out, photos are taken and bags are packed. A poloton spins up the road to die Rote Taube (Red Dove) where we start on the beers and I fill up on Flammkuchen. Somehow my pool form from earlier in the week continues and I go through the evening unbeaten, though I lose out to Ray on the bull in the darts. When things wind down at the Dove, they soon pick up again at KAP. Agata needs to be taken home, which is good news for anyone who doesn't want to be bitten!
Poor James Aufbruch (straight edge and sober) does a great job of putting up with my drunken jabbering, and is left to prop up the bar whilst Vancouver Tim and I roll back to the hotel at 4.00am, only slightly losing our way...

Aftermath

On the train back to Paris (where I sweet-talk my way through (I've lost my) passport control) so many things come back to me: the Marmoubooth, titty-dice, smooth moves by the Frenchies, Chan + the celebrity doppelgänger, making new friends, seeing old ones, people falling over, Mat's sheared axle, the team photos, poo change...
The whole trip started out badly, I had my passport stolen, I spent more than I could afford - it all should have added up to an awful experience, but the truth is I had the most amazing time. Polo love...

Really nice writeup Chris

Is that Chan with Rutger Hauer?

tl;dr

Who won?