Birmingham Bike Polo Chat & BS Thread

It's really much easier if people just let me organise things.

I have a beanie with the letter 'M' on the front - found in my bag after polo today. Anyones?

Guess. Who do you think it could be?

It;s mine dan..

Yours? With an M on it?

My money was on Fin...

I'm selling my red nike helmet. if anyone wants to play shop?

ROFL COPTER

Wolverhampton Bike Polo - YouTube

^ mini write up for the website anyone???

Is that Ken playing polo?! Wow.

Last week (i think) Chris mentioned a court he'd seen from the railway at 5 ways, he said it was under the ring road, can anyone be anymore specific about where it is and i'll make enquiries as to who owns it?

London's fourth league is about to start (format here) and I was thinking maybe we could do something similar, albeit much smaller, as in, two teams.

I know my previous league suggestion failed (although Romanian Mountain Goats were de facto winners with one win and no losses) but that's no reason not to keep trying different things. And this wouldn't be a league anyway.

Could split everyone who plays with any degree of frequency into two teams, with maybe myself and Fin as captains, based on ability and attendance, and play a team game every week. 30 min/1 hour games and every player has to play a minimum of 10-20 minutes or something (details can be sorted later). That may require everyone to have an ironic Casio digital watch, but as 90% of players already have one that shouldn't be a problem.

Teams might look like this

Highgate Taliban
danwentskiing
dan_lj
Gunja
Malletesta
Claudbutler
Asim
Ken

Calthorpe Caliphate
Hyperallah
N3il
EMM
RazP
LucasR
Joe
Kat

If one team has more players one week then too bad, it should all even out from one week to the next. If newbies start they join one of the teams based on coin flips/even numbers. If we have an esteemed guest for one game, they flip to see which team they're playing on, or something like that.

We can play it as a winter mega-series; first to ten victories. Losing team has to do something unpleasant...

It could be very lopsided depending on who shows up. It would defeat the point of a 'competitive' league system if there's no consistency in teams.

I think it's better to set a one day mini tournament (or two) so people can plan and it will increase the numbers. Do it on a sunday then decamp to the pub.

Birmingham Bench (x)th November or something. 3 Games, 40 mins, two halves???

It could be very lopsided depending on who shows up.

Well, kind of, but if we pick the top 4 in each team reasonably carefully it would even out. It feels like we have about 8 regulars, and everyone else (apart from LJ) who shows up infrequently is a bit further off in ability.

Worth a try?

One-off things are all well and good, but I don't think they really drive new people to come, or experienced people to come more often.

What if we do a massive single player tourney covering November-March?
The more people that turn up, the better points they will get. All games can count.
Winner gets to come out for a drink and not buy any rounds.

I like Neil's idea.

Can we make it free drinks for the top two?

1 point for a win, 0 for a loss. No draws, all games count. I'm happy to do scoring as I should be at most polo sessions between now and March. I can keep the results on a read-only google doc to avoid tampering.

Sounds good, would you be up for doing it in detail, like Played, Goals scored (as a team), goals conceded (as a team)?

And team goal difference could count towards an individual's tally?

If we were to make it more detailed we could do:

1 individual point for playing
1 individual point for a team win
0 individual points for a team loss
team goal difference counts as individual goal difference

This way, the newer players can still gain points from playing regularly rather than just winning alone.

The goal difference will just separate the top of the table come March.

Can you guys see this as 'read only'?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhdEdvbnaHbIdEVpMWt4Vm5qNGVkN0p6c2VZVllrWUE#gid=0

Yep. Can we make it three points for playing, and one extra point for a win? It will keep the results looking closer and more impressive for newer players.

Yeah, are we sure three is the way to go rather than 2? There is probably some sort of hypothetical equation we could do here.

if we say three for a win and one for a loss ( thats the same as taking part), it should almost mimic the football leagues and prevent many problems.

I think 3 for a win and 1 for a loss is the same as doing 1 for a win and 0 for a loss. It just creates bigger margins, and margins based on winning and losing rather than taking part.

If two players start a game, they are still on level terms, one player wins, he/she is now in front, but the other player could be level again just by playing in another game

I like the idea of giving points for playing, but prefer Neil's break down above. Playing and losing two games should be worth less than playing and winning one game IMO.

It'd be nice to have a 'games played' count so that we can see how many wins per game played if you know what I mean. Boy, I love me some stats!

Can you guys see this as 'read only'?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhdEdvbnaHbIdEVpMWt4Vm5qNGVkN0p6c2VZVllrWUE#gid=0

Yes. Tried to put myself top of the league and change my name to Goal King but it wouldn't let me...