Birmingham Bike Polo Chat & BS Thread

**Cambridge, Tues 28th, depart 3.30pm, return midnight-1am ish - £10 petrol
**1. danwentskiing

1. Stu
   
2. MG
   
   

Full, unless somebody wants to come without their bike, EMM?

What happened to everyone on the way home? Did you go to the shop again?

Matt had to get stuff out of my car.

Good show today with the multi-court shuffle and less-than-ideal meeting location.

I've put a list on the Events thread. As discussed, let's try to keep waffle out of that thread so that people can skim read it more easily and see when/where we are playing.

What happened to everyone on the way home? Did you go to the shop again?

You were just in front of us, then we caught you up at the lights and it wasn't you, just someone that looked like you from a distance. Sorry!

Taster Day
Just mentioned that we might be having a 'taster day' in the near future (like we discussed at the meeting) to a couple of friends and they were both interested. I said that they could borrow a bike if they needed one and the session would consist of a training part and a few games and then a demo by us lot to show how fast the 'real' players play towards the end. Maybe if we set a date and start mentioning it to people, and add them to a facebook event after we tell them, then between us we could get about 20 people down, with the result being maybe 5 or so coming to future sessions and getting involved. I can't think why this hasn't been done before

Shall we do it one Sunday. I realise this will mean that fewer fast-paced games will get played but if it could mean a few more players in the scene to help get reliable polo sessions every wednesday and Sunday then I'm up for it

Yep, sounds good. When do you think is a good time? Now while it's quiet (nobody has stuff to do) or in the spring when it's nice (but people go out and have bbqs)?

We did try it a few years ago on the Skyride, and that's how we poached Simon, Pete and Sarah.

It's always instructive hearing from newer players about how/why they started coming and what their first impressions were. I think today we learned it can be a bit intimidating to be dropped in the deep end with us old hands, so creating a 'way-in' would be good.

I think pretty soon. How does a couple of weeks time sound, i.e.** Sun 26th Feb?**

I'll type up the minutes tonight, what do you want me to do with them? put them up here or on the blog?

@Stu - I think it would be better to wait a bit longer until we have flyers, and/or mentioned it to people at Critical Mass. Maybe sometime soon after the next Mass, and we can all take our polo bikes on that one and mention it to as many people as possible. I'm concerned that if we do it two weeks from now, we won't get enough people. It would be great to get 6+ beginners, so we can have 100% beginners games.

OK yeah, sounds good. Do you think the Sunday after CM would be best, or leave it til the week after?

First Sunday is 4th, second is 11th.

Bristol tournament is on 11th, so it's probable three of us will be there. Which needn't be a bad thing... I'm thinking me and Hyper will want to practice on 4th.

4th is immediate, so stoned hippy massers don't forget, but maybe they'll all be busy getting stoned (only a few day's notice)?

4th of March then? Don't want to ruin plans for Bristolian domination

I'd prefer 11th. Selfishly it means me and Hyper can practice on the 4th, but practically, you guys may not get 6 players on the 11th anyway, if we are both away, so that would be an ideal time to get beginners down.

im probs going to go to bristol anyway too, and so is MG. So the 11th might be a struggle. Are 'hippy masses' guna be up at 10am on a Sunday anyway? would a wednesday once the clocks have changed be better? With the promise of beer afterwards?

Good thinking - as Claudbutler the hard grafting wage slave points out, people are more likely to come if it's post-work and they haven't filled themselves up on hummus.

Black Stabbath (me, 4ndy, Hyper) got in to Bristol. We're going to want to develop our team play between now and then, so I propose me and Hyper play together a lot, with someone who doesn't mind going in goal, against the best opposition we can muster.

4ndy will be back on the Wednesday before the tournament (7th), so we'll probaby want some confidence-boosting, letter-inspiring, 5-0 ass-whupping games then.

If any of you guys have feedback, please let us know, as we stand a chance of going top-10 in this one...

Well done Dan. yeah good idea. I'm happy to form a strong opposition to make you guys work.

(EMM on Asims work computer) mwhahahaha

EMM will probably need to borrow your bike Asim, so it's apt that he's using your username.

Gonna' keep on trollin' until EMM gets a bike...

Get a bike!

a wednesday once the clocks have changed be better? With the promise of beer afterwards?

Good thinking about the clock change. Clocks change on 26th Feb right? It currently gets dark at 5:15, so after the clock change that would be 6:15 (maybe more like 6:30 due to our orbit around the Sun), meaning people will turn up in the light - a much more attrative option than turning up to meet a load of randoms on a dark basketball court in a shithole neighbourhood.

So how about wednesday 7th March at Calthorpe?

What we don't want is loads of kids playing football/basketball/spit-on-the-rubbish-I-just-dropped, though... 6.30 at Calthorpe is likely to be busy.

I wouldn't want to stamp on the emerging enthusiasm, but I think it would be better to wait until spring has sprung (April/May) and we're playing at Highgate. Or just encourage the hippies to come 'anytime' on a Sunday. Highgate makes the game look so much better (fewer gaps, smoother surface...) too.

+1

OK, lets re-discuss in a couple of months

On a completely different topic, I'd just like to share some tactical play that seemed to click with me on Sunday. I've seen Dan and Hyper doing a 'circling-round- goal-keeping-possession-and-taking-shots' tactic before but had had no success when I tried to copy it until yesterday. Now I think I've got the gist of it. So maybe this diagram and explanation could help others:

When I was playing with EMM we seemed to pull off this move quite successfully, eventually leading to a goal. The diagram shows the first attack on goal by two players on the same team. Player 1 has the ball and is taking the ball into space, towards a shooting opportunity. After he takes his shot the ball can either go straight in the goal (SUCCESS!), be blocked by the keeper (FAIL), or skew off at an angle past the goal (ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN) as shown by the green arrows. If the shot is blocked, possession is usually turned over to the opposition, but if it goes wide you have an opportunity to retain possession and keep trying. "How?!", I hear you ask. This is where player 2 comes in.

As player 1 lines up his shot, player 2, originally rolling along behind player 1 in a 'drop' position, comes past from behind and loops round the back of goal at high speed, aiming to reach the spot marked 'X' just as the shot is taken . If the ball does go wide he can collect it and loop back round to the top of goal for either a shot or a pass.

Repeat until you win

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Putting yourself behind the goal on a shot is very risky... if the ball rebounds then you're allowing the team to breakaway with a single player to pick them up/slow them down (or if you use a perma-goalie, then you've effectively just given them a just-beat-the-keeper breakaway which is an easy goal for most players).

A nifty tactic in the same vein is to occupy a place on court that is reflectively symmetrical to the shooter... this gives you the best odds of picking up the rebound if it hits disk wheels (most likely as they occupy the largest area in front of goal), remember to keep your speed/momentum at all times and nip behind the goal if the shot goes wide (you should be able to easily keep more momentum than the defenders who are often slow moving).