Tourney: Cambridge Swiss Roll Pre-Barca Warm Up - 5th June

Just looked at the spreadsheet. What happened to Cosmic..? I dont see them in the last 16.

Hard luck bbb. Degen beat nice rappers? I need info.

Degen had erin as a sub for mark

Dead touch had nik as a sub for brendan

Almost joined twitter to find out what's going on.
Are people leaving? What's going on?

According to twitter Spring break just took fenboy 3 in the final.

Just looked at the spreadsheet. What happened to Cosmic..? I dont see them in the last 16.

We bailed out early after topping group stage...unfortunately the training day turned into an unexpected long tourney...and we didn't want to get back into London late on a Sunday. But that's not to say it wasn't a cool day.

Thanks cambridge for putting it all together... nice to see the UK polo gang!

See you all in Barcelona!

From the spreadsheet it looks like Fenboy won. Is that the first ever non-London team tournament win?

Sounds like a long day, but I guess all one-dayers are going to be like that.

Spreedsheet says Fb3 - 5 Spring Break 3, but then has Spring Break showing as the winners.

Drunk?

Edit, Chukker Tweet says Spring Break won.

awesome day of polo!

Chukkers saying Spring Break..his tweets are a bit funny though :/

chukker is a bit funny…

thanks a lot Cambridge, had a fun day!

Spring Break took 1st place, they knocked out Thor, Electric Cream and Fen Boy in that order to take it.

Thanks to all of our guests, especially those who travelled mega far... south coast guys, Manchester, Birmingham, the Bristol/Brighton/Cardiff connection, new guys from Essex, I'm sure I'm forgetting people. Amazing to see so many new teams, new faces generally and quite a few teams that were just thrown together for the tournament, not forgetting the London regulars.

The tournament today which was a bit here and there at times but amazingly held together by John who whipped up a spreadsheet pretty much instantly and held it down all day.

Also, please remember the warehouse isn't going anywhere and only a 45 minute train ride from London... We play three times a week, get involved.

^ It takes me about that long to get to Downham from Brixton... Time for a rethink?

Looking forward to seeing pics and stuff, gutted I couldn't make it today...

Rad weekend cambridge! was a wicked weekend of polo and well worth the journey. Thanks especially matt for the beds (best nights sleep i've had in a long time). Look forward to seeing you all again and good to hear that amazing court ain't going anywhere

Just want to say thanks to John H for sorting out the tournament format, Cambridge for puting on a fun day of bike polo, and Ed Pie for making this awesome trophy! I had a blast :)

cheers guys

Cheers Cambridge for a great weekend. Sons of Olaf (slaves of olay??) will definitely be back. Looking forward to the NS later in the year already.

The tournament today which was a bit here and there at times but amazingly held together by John who whipped up a spreadsheet pretty much instantly and held it down all day.

Just want to say thanks to John H for sorting out the tournament format

No worries, but I'm quite looking forward to the next tournament I just play in ;)

Sorry that the format wasn't ideal, I would have rather done Swiss rounds, but that wasn't really possible at 5 minutes notice, and I've never done it by hand. We also created the format when we had 15 teams registered, but then had another 7 teams turn up once we had started, so the group stage went on a lot longer than first planed, initially I had 37 games planned, it turned into about 55.

Anyway, I hope everyone had fun, I certainly enjoyed the games we played.

Well done Spring Break.

It was a great day, thanks john for all the work. I was disappointed not to play SR though. That was the point after all, play a warm up with teams of a similar calibre. I dont want to put a downer on it, but i have to be honest. You are experienced enough that if you call a one day SR warm up you should learn how to do that format. Do what it says on the tin and dont make excuses for it. I'm sorry but i just wouldnt have come up to cambs for the format that we ended up doing and thats why so many people left. It's a real shame to call people to come for one thing then do another and i dont think it is fair to blame the guy you asked to do the software. Its your front room, your warehouse, you should learn how to do SR. I can't believe after all the crowing the last few times and tourneys, (the alphabetised seeding form last time, random seeding before) that cambs cant work it out..? It is all very well that you have this awesome space, but people came from far afield , sheff, manc, bright, to play in a 15 team SR. And I dont think that you took that into consideration and it's just not really good enough. I also think the cambridge bench minor team was a bit whack, FB3 turn up at 4/5pm and play 4 games in a row...? Its your home court, people have travelled for miles and you rock up late, (ok hayden turns up so you enter and harvey plays twice) and play in your own front room...? If you sorted your formatting out, let everyone know the score before hand and did that i might not mind, but i felt it was a bit of a piss take when that meant, there was no more time to play single elim and i had to go back to london as did cosmic and the mancs had to leave. What use was it for netto to play FB3 and win when they were about to leave because they had run out of time? I like you cambs guys all very much, your welcoming and you have great skills and a great space but i think you miss the point of being a host. You don't make your guests take the hit, you take the hit. Well done spring break, glad you finally have something to put on your blog.

For 2 members of Lunch Club (Birmingham) it was our first tournament. From our point of view it seemed to work really well and we learned a hell of a lot. Big thanks to everyone at Cambridge

FWIW, I'd expected a day of polo to support those UK teams that'd qualified, irrespective of the eventual format, due directly to the initial promotion. I was keen to 'help' those teams in any way that worked, however the day soon morphed into a rambling open tournament with little focus and meaning relating to the name given - however good it was for the locals and the newer teams in attendance.

I'm not here to register any disappointment about the polo per se, just frustration at an opportunity lost - we had a great day as ever and it is always good to see new teams beginning their journey too - but the Barca focus should/could have been the priority with all the London Qualification tournament teams separated and seeded into their own intense mini event/league on the day, with the new or non LQ teams having their own games/tourney, with maybe the winners/finalists playing some of the other Barca group later in the day.

The eventual format was also unfortunately very stilted - the two matches then 2/3 hour break meant too much sitting around and no atmosphere/spectator engagement. By the time the group stages were done the frustrations were kicking in and the desire to forget the 5am start/400 mile round trip and the £ costs for 40 minutes polo was weighing heavily!

Big thanks to John H for making it run and the Cambridge Crew for hospitality as per.

Still love polo!

+1

For 2 members of Lunch Club (Birmingham) it was our first tournament. From our point of view it seemed to work really well and we learned a hell of a lot. Big thanks to everyone at Cambridge

Yes, first tournament for me so it was ace playing people from outside Birmingham for the first time, and seeing how we all do things differently. Birmingham seems to be slowly improving! We played some ace fast competitive games that really pushed us, and there were a lot of good sports present. Thanks Cambridge!