Tourney: Bristol - NS - 17-18.09.2011

I know this has been said before but just wanted to thank everyone for coming to Bristol for our tourney, without you guys there would have been loads more cider and beer for us....

Also just wanted to say a big thank you to.

Ady for securing the site for us, putting up the penthouse prize (I haven't seen it but from what I heard it was amazing...), Making sure the courts were boarded up and playable, organising the catering (YUM-YUM) and all the little bits I can't remember. Ady without your help this weekend wouldn't have been anywhere near the success it was...

Rich for organising the insurance, gazeebo, toilets and most of all sorting out the format for the weekend. Big thanks for the massive effort you put in.

Cab for being on site before, during and after the tourney. Making sure people and the site were safe and in general making himself available for whatever had to be done....

Warin brothers for representing Bristol and making it pretty far in the tourney. Also for all the hours spent sweeping and painting the courts. Thanks guys......

I also want to thank all the sponsors for all the great prizes, I know that everyone is happy with the goodies received.

Bone Shaker
Brev M
Chrome
Buttcombe Brewery
Caose Cycles
Strada Cycles

Cant wait for next year.......

Great tourney, thanks to the Bristol crew for organising. Really enjoyed the tournament, and you made me (and everyone else who came down) so welcome, already looking forward to next year.

Thanks very much to my team-mates Chris & Plaize for inviting me to play with you, it was really fun, and thanks to everyone that nominated me for MVP! A real surprise!

Favourite game was Electric Cream 5 Shit the Bed 4. Great polo, and great drama.

Anti Polo Consortium best Brighton team! Go the Blues!

Anti Polio Consortium best Brighton team! Go the Blues!

ftfy

wow what a weekend, massive thanks to Bristol for running such a good event. Rich, ninja and co kept things in order nicely. the 'polo retreat' idea is great and needs to happen more often; being able to eat, sleep, shit, and play polo in one place is awesome, and all next to an amazing city. next time you put an event on Bristol I will be staying for longer and bringing my mountain bike. (Rich, I still haven't paid the entry fee, send me an invoice so I can sort it!)

also, thanks to the creamers for the games. there were so many great games i can't list them all, but the games with StB (thanks for the words Gabes) and Thor stuck in my mind the most as really challenging. great times, bring on Cambridge Winter NS (TBC)!

love polo!

Thanks Bristol, great tournament. If someone can post the full final standings at some point I'll update the NS standings.

Pix please...

Thanks Bristol: Rich for being calm as a cucumber and super organised; Ady for always smiling and sorting the penthouse, amazing; Andre for being the 'hostess with the mostess' and an awesome compare, nice one (and also for finding me the sweet red tyre)!

It was one of my favourite weekends of the year, I'd love to have stayed for longer... will definitely be up for next year, maybe make it longer than two days and get some live bands playing and some bonfires, polo retreat stylee!

Finally thanks to Adam (always a pleasure) and Ed (super sub) for being sweet team mates, you guys rock.

thank you all for a wonderful weekend, apologies where due, and well done for putting on a very well organised shindig

The weekend is finally over and what a weekend it was.

After being inspired by some of the fantastic events this year, a plan was hatched to host a NS event here in Bristol. After looking into various sites across the city, a chance sighting of the derelict land off the Portway by Andre got us thinking…..could this be the perfect venue for our tournament?

There was a problem. In fact, there were several problems! The site had been heavily fly-tipped and vandalized. Nature had also decided it wanted the land back and over the years had replaced a large amount of the tarmac courts and walls with spikey brambles, trees and nettles. It was very difficult to track down the owner of the land to get the relevant permissions. There was a lot of work to be done!

In the early stages, the Bristol Polo Community pulled together and took up gardening. Days were spent uncovering the courts and clearing litter and broken glass from the site. The courts were quite badly damaged. There had been a fire in court one leaving a large hole right in front of the goal area. Roots had sprouted through the tarmac around the perimeters.

We did our best with the playing surface and when we finally had the site cleared, Andre and I started to put together ideas to make the tourney unique and special. We wanted the Bristol Open to be different.

I hope that you all agree that we pulled it off. I would like to thank everyone who took part this weekend despite the awful weather, but special thanks to the following….

Andre…. Huge amounts of enthusiasm and optimism when initially planning the event. Securing excellent sponsorship for the event (a difficult job considering it was our first one). Blagging the free use of tonnes of stuff. Knowing some cool people who helped us make the site work (graffiti, tarmac guys etc). Being the compare on the day and generally dicking about as per usual and many many other things to do with the organization of the event that I can’t even remember

Rich…. Many hours of hard graft clearing the site of brambles. Sorting the tournament format and keeping the polo going over the weekend. Worrying about stuff that Andre and I would not have even thought of cos we were too busy (how are the guys gonna empty the toilets etc, what about insurance etc etc?)

Cab….Always there grafting before during and after. Put in a shed load of man hours at the site. Showed me how to use a sweeping brush! Always had a tool for the job. Provided an ambulance service for injured players and was security on site when most others were down the pub

Warins…..Is Alfie even human? I saw him dragging a tree off the courts one day that was approximately 50 times his size!! Out of all of us in Bristol that mucked in to help, Alfie probably worked the hardest. Total dedication and an inspiration. Also Tim for his painting skills and generally being a decent bloke. I am sure Robbie helped too, but then again he was probably too busy building his new bike!!!

The Bristol Polo Community…. You know who you are. Thanks for all your support and hard work preparing the venue and for helping out at the end with packing up

Some of my highlights from the weekend are…

• Rob from Polo Erectus’ reaction and celebration after beating us 1-0. That hurt. Also the kazoo blowing during some of the last games on Sunday.

• The spectator support for Wheelie Wheelie Good during our game against them on Saturday. I felt the hatred!!!

• Seeing my mrs working behind the bar and getting her to serve me a drink!!

• Jeff’s celebration at winning the bike in the raffle. Couldn’t have gone to a nicer chap!

• Andre’s interview (with mini wine bottle as mic) filmed by Chan following our defeat against Polo Erectus. I really hope we get to see some of the footage from the weekend.

• Checking Spring Break into one of my penthouse apartments as prize for leading on the Saturday (thanks for not throwing the TV off the terrace guys).

• Paul Kneesleys big crash. Worthy of the best crash award.

• Shit the Bed vs Cream game. One of my favourites of the weekend.

• People coming up and thanking me for putting on a great tournament.

We are already thinking about next year and of course have plans for BIGGER AND BETTER. If not before, then see you all in 2012!!

Thank you Andre,Rich ,Ady,Cab and everyone involved in putting on such an enjoyable weekend . Really appreciate all your hard work , making everyone welcome and coping with all the unexpected problems with such aplomb . Great prizes too .Gutted to miss the finals , we had a very slow van with the ubiquitous breakdown stops and Traffic Jams on the M4 to catch on the way back . Is Cambridge next to host nationals ? We've got a tough act to follow !

Shit the bed v Electric Cream game was epic !
Who left their pants on the floor of the Portaloo ? I can post them .

Big thanks to all the Bristol crew for hosting this tourney! The site was awesome, a real polo festival! It may have rained all weekend but it didn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm - I'm hoarse from laughing at all the silliness...

Thanks to Skip Rat Aidan for prepping me his front wheel when mine went flat pre-game. Thanks to all the taxi drivers that helped me find my (drunken) way onto Clifton Bridge at 2am. Sorry to the folks that missed my show-and-genital in the pub!

Well done Spring Break, get it on the blog!

Thanks Bristol, excellent weekend. Thanks also to Ben & Paul 'the knees' Beasley for playing with me as subsonic.

Thanks Bristol, had an amazing weekend. was so good to see the whole bristol polo co really pulling out all the stops and organising a great tournament.
Great prizes and great idea having the penthouse for the winners of the first day, good to see the goodies getting bigger and better every tourney.

Well done spring brake and nice touch was good to see you guys always keeping the level high.

had some epic games, Was great to play against sick of the ball, had a blast.

playing thor was great, was good to see Rv playing out more and getting involved the other end of the court for once.

Favorite game of the weekend was playing Shit the bed, a hard fast game.

Thanks to Lee and Bogey, was a pleasure as per usual. Lee's pedal strikes were amazing, never have I seen a man hit the ground so hard in my life.

Thanks again Bristol, more like this one please!

Final Results and National Series points:

1. Spring Break (32 pts)
   
2. Nice Touch (28 pts)
   
3. Electric Cream (23 pts)
   
4. Shit the Bed (19 pts)
   =5. Sick of the Ball, Thor (14 pts)
   =7. Asbo, Les Peacocks (10 pts)
   =9. Tornadoes, Warin, Killer B's, Anti Polo Consortium (6 pts)
   =13. Acapolo, Erectus, Subsonic, Hacked Off (3 pts)
   =17. 8 Ball, Skip Rats, Wheely Wheely Good (2 pts)
   
   

http://challonge.com/bristoldoubleelim

Excellent tournament, can't fault it at all.
Wish I coulda played, but loved watching Tornadoes kill kill kill!
Well done SB, NT, Electro Cream and Shit the Bed. Awesome games in the finals, nail bitingly close.
Well done Bristol, you're all so nice and wonderful, it was a fantastic polo retreat, and as others have said not even the rain killed the atmosphere. Thanks again, looking forward to seeing you all at BFF and Hell's Belles - especially wheely wheely good, it was nice to meet a fellow Brisbanite polo girl.
x

thankyou bristol for such an awesome weekend of polo. The organising was spot on. i am covered in cuts and bruises but it was all worth it.

my favorite games were playing nice touch twice you guys were awesome. i also really enjoyed playing cream both times (winning and losing!) really physical, aggressive second game.

thank you all of bristol polo you guys are great!

bring on the BFF

Cheers Bristol polo for an excellent weekend. Great weekend by the crew on 8-Ball abeit we came joint last. Great games against Hacked Off (a draw counts as a win in my book!) and Acopolo (well the first one was great) and of course a wake up game against Shit the Bed...at least we got one against you!!! The standard of polo was sooo high, i was knackered even before the 40min + ride back from the pub on Sat :(
And who'd a thought that one minute youre sweeping a veritable tsunami from court 1 only to be parading your nice new shiny BrevM on it the next...?!?!?
Cant wait to learn how to play properly now. We need more people in Cardiff to play with.
Thanks Bristol!

We need more people in Cardiff to play with.
I will be in touch Jeff! We need to hook up the Bristol and Cardiff polo people for a monthly or even fortnightly outing. I have some plans for this.

This weekend proved that a little rain is great for improving skills, which is convenient given the atlantic climate shared by Cardiff and Bristol: fewer rained off sessions FTW :-D

Nice one, Bristol. Thankyou very much for all the obvious hard work you all put in to make this happen. Anti Polo had a great time, despite the weather...and the somewhat repetitive music. Big thanks to Bill for joining us. Looking forward to seeing everyone in the near future.x

Wow thanks Bristol!! The work that must of gone into must of been gargantuan!

So awesome, how much bristol bike polo has grown in 1 year is brilliant! The tourney was sweet the location was special and different. Music, beer and sun at times! i wish i camped but then the penthouse was rad! Hanging out with nice touch & tornadoes eating pizza & beer. Would of been great to have everyone round but the place was too nice to trash!

i goal reffed the shit the bed vs cream game what a nail bitter! Hacked off playing wheelie wheelie good was an entertainer, watching & playing against some of the brighton teams who seem to have quite a few evenly matched teams that are all getting super awesome! Uk polo rules and is getting better! I like this lot's x

I think i left my glasses in the penthouse? some red hugo boss specs ady?

Bristol i love you. One day i might come and live there..

I think i left my glasses in the penthouse? some red hugo boss specs ady?
I haven't heard anything back from my housekeeping team yet, but will ask them tomorrow Adam and PM you if we have them. If you stashed them anywhere (in a drawer or in a particular place) then let me know and I will pop over tomorrow and have a good look.

PICTURES!
http://www.iseepeople.co.uk/bristolpolo/index.html