One of these days, I will think of a snappier and more anonymous title for this column. In the meantime: "Commitment to Octopush", is it obvious? How many Octopush teams are there? Is that a good measure of commitment? How many days a week do you play? Is that a good measure of commitment? When did you last send in a match report, or score a gull or recruit a new player?

Commitment means different things to each of us. Sometimes that commitment is recognised, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it's appreciated, sometimes it isn’t. The A.G.M. on Sunday 25^th April at the Quality Hotel (formerly Queen’s Hotel) in Crystal Palace showed commitment in many forms. The outgoing and incoming officers all have tremendous commitment to the cause of Octopush. You may not like their style, or their vision, or the gulls they scored against your team, but there is no denying their commitment. Some have only served for a year or so, others are familiar faces and are icons of what the B.O.A. is.

I’m not one of them. In spite of some suggestions that I would be a useful member of the B.O.A. committee I have resisted: declined offers of advancement, if you will. I would like to air my reasons for that decision not to stand for election to a post in the service and promotion of our sport.

Principally, I’m lazy! I have long since burned out my meagre ambitions and I’m all in favour of a quiet life. I’ve discovered that I cannot "do" organisation effectively and that failure gets me stressed. NO good if you’re after the quiet life! What’s more, in the context of this article’s topic, I think my commitment to Octopush is enough; I juggle two senior teams and up to six junior teams and I’ve taken on running the Yorkshire League this year.

I’ve also seen that in moving into administering, supporting and developing an activity, it is all to easy to lose touch with what the ground level experience you’re trying to promote is like. Rules and structures are necessary to turn ‘idle’ pastime into sport. But rules and structures can strangle enjoyment and kill enthusiasm. Our sport is still too young to support too many strictures; it’s one of those things that endears me to Octopush. We are not mainstream, we do not have weekly coverage in the sporting press, and we do not have a series of rungs to climb where "here’s your bit of paper to say that you can do this and that but not the other" which is the clarion call of the jobsworth. It will come. Probably. I might even be instrumental in advancing creeping maturation of our sport. But at the moment, Octopush at club level and especially with the juniors is still a bit ad hoc. It appeals to independent youngsters with little interest in other sports possibly as much as it does to sporty types. To me, that is one of the greatest attractions of the sport.

I always like to put a message or a plea of some sort in these columns so here it is. Let us not move too fast towards confining structures, pressures and rules, but on the other hand lets not make such things necessary.

So far I’ve been a bit vague and general. I’ll try to be more specific: on the dangers of trying to be too ambitious. Junior development is vital if the sport is not to die along with its originators. To promote and maintain this we need some training, coaching and award scheme, but we do not yet need a fully developed scheme with tiers and coaching levels saying which person can teach which skills and to whom. We need a start, albeit small, but something that the kids will enjoy, that existing coaches can work with and that we can all develop. We’ve had ideas floating around for years but getting something going seems to be delayed wanting to put in place a grandiose complete scheme. Well, I’ve waited too long. This year I’m starting a membership and award scheme for my club. I’ve printed 150 copies of the booklet (on waterproof paper) enough for a few more clubs to join me in ‘trying something out’.

Any takers? Call 0114 281 8018

On the provoked need for rules. It was interesting to hear the list of Men’s National Champions from Cliff Underwood when he presented the title to Reading this year. A long-standing and hard working team has joined the ranks of such illustrious and well known teams as "The Club" (a one hit wonder) and Leeds Beavers (or was that Reading or was it some foreign team?).

Transfer fees and million pound Octopush players will have to wait for big money sponsors, but in the meantime let's not abuse the spirit of fair play which sport is supposed to promote.

On the excessive use of rules. The B.O.A., wisely, it must be said, have issued draft codes of conduct for junior sessions. On this notice it states "Those that do not sign the acknowledgement letter will not be allowed to play. I regularly have 30+ juniors wanting to play Octopush; if I enforced this draft code of conduct I would have 5.

May 15^th 1999. Ponds Forge, Sheffield,

For the fourth time, teams of the youngest Octopush players came together for a National Championship. This is the second time the event has been held at Ponds Forge. This year’s event was a little smaller than last year, with 11 teams from 8 clubs taking part.

The main refereeing force came from players who had been in the defending champion’s team last year, Sheffield Stingrays. Batley and older Sheffield players helped out, as well as adults from the visiting teams. A low key start in both pools belied a tense and hard fought finale. While the Orkney Storms (A-team) were quite clearly the undisputed best, the next four or five teams could have finished in almost any order. The final three matches and a play-off were needed to decide the placings. The games got tighter as the day went on.

The contenders were Sheffield Stingrays, Guildford Gremlins, Inverness Titans, Huddersfield Sharks, Batley Argonauts. (Not that I’m partisan or anything, but notice the preponderance of Northern teams in this list, compared to the Southern bias at adult level.)

From the perspective of the Sheffield team, the drama started to unfold when they lost to the Orkney Storms. They were completely outplayed and lost 4-0. Inverness in the other group were scoring 8,9,10. In the next match Sheffield lost narrowly in the final seconds to Guildford: 2-1. Then Batley held the Sheffield team (who had originally aspired to retaining the national title) to 0-0 at half time. A tense start to the second half with neither team showing a clear advantage. After two minutes Sheffield scored! A quick change of formation to close up the chance of a return goal and the match was secured with a hard won 1-0 score line. But the recorder had 1-1! This would deprive Sheffield of a place in the top six in the second round. After some debate all agreed the final score was 1-0 to Sheffield.

In the second round Guildford and Sheffield had yet to tackle Inverness with only three matches to go. First on the rack was Sheffield: Sheffield scored first but Inverness had a rapid reply and the game finished drawn at 1-1. Second, third and fourth place was still wide open. Guildford faced Inverness in the last scheduled match and a 2-1 victory for Inverness was recorded. Guildford claimed a 1-1 draw, which would give them a play off for second place. Chief referee and recorder went by the score–line, water referees with other things on their mind than the score line were not clear, there were two disallowed goals. Eventually, this time the scoreline stood. Inverness took second place, but there had to be a play-off for third place between Guildford and Sheffield.

Five minutes one way, then ‘Golden Goal’ was agreed with the teams and battle was joined. It was for third and fourth place but the competition was intense. The Guildford star player had started his career two year ago with Sheffield, the Sheffield team thought they could and should have beaten Guildford first time around. Guildford had a victory to defend, Sheffield had the home ground.

In the end it was one goal and furious defending against the counter-attack that secured the third place for Sheffield, one place ahead of the desperately disappointed Guildford team.

Several other very significant matters need mentioning.

Firstly, Farnham Bishops came in spite of last minute team problems. They only had four players, but with a little help from the Sheffield Stingrays B-team they finished sixth overall. Secondly the overall standard of play from these youngsters is improving year by year, as it is with the Under-16 age group. Competition is fierce but it is always friendly. This is the future of the sport of Octopush and it needs nurturing. There is a need for more clubs to encourage younger players, so we can get leagues going around the country. These young players usually have to wait a full year between competitions.

The Third Sheffield Under-13 Tournament (1999)

Easter Sunday is an odd day to have an Octopush tournament, but I wanted to use our regular training pool for the third Sheffield Under-13 tournament and three hours on Easter Sunday was the best available.

Being originally a school swimming pool, it is not large and is not equipped for spectators, consequently I had to limit entry to five teams.

Refereeing was provided by four of last year’s Sheffield Under-13 team, helped by adults and Under-16 players from the visiting teams.

With this being the first under-13 competition this season, every team was an unknown.

The tournament started with the home team (and defending champions) against one of our near neighbours; Huddersfield. Huddersfield scored! Quickly!! Twice!!! Then Sheffield’s star player arrived, courtesy of Sunday bus services, the rest of the team rose to the occasion and were eventual victors with a score of 5-3. This turned out to be the decisive match, with Sheffield retaining the tournament title and trophy and Huddersfield finishing a close second. Of course, we didn’t know that until much later.

The next match lifted Rochdale’s hopes with a 5-1 victory over the Barnsley team, Metrodome Barracudas (Metrodome’s under-16 team are this year’s Yorkshire champions). Two games later Sheffield Stingrays beat Rochdale by the same margin, 5-1.

The team who travelled furthest, Farnham, put up a spirited fight but sadly finished fifth. They scored their only goal of the tournament against the winners Sheffield. Rochdale and Metrodome took third and fourth place respectively.

By Chris Careless, Sheffield

To order printed copies of this magazine, please contact Helen Field at publications@britishoctopush.org.