For details of fixtures from the 1998/99 season please see the 1998/99 Fixtures List.
For full details of the "Touring and Drinking Club" trips please refer to the CTDC News Page.
1997 |
20th-21st Mar 99: Ed and Martin represent the UK Barbarians at
Maastricht. For a second year, Ed and Martin were selected to represent the UK
Barbarians at the annual inter-clubs tournament in Maastricht, The Netherlands. This time,
however, they weren't on the same team, as Ed was playing for the second main Barbarians
team, while Martin - nine years Ed's senior, and with two years more playing experience -
was playing for the Barbarians "Young Guns"! Still, the captain of the
"Young Guns" was Keith Waterhouse of Bristol, and he's 29, and has been playing
for thirteen years! Obviously a bit of experience was needed in the
middle of the pack . . .
For full tournament results please see here.
13th-14th Mar 99: National Qualifiers at Crystal Palace. Despite teaming up
with Watford for National Competitions, it was a severely depleted bunch that flew the
Chesham flag at Crystal Palace this weekend. Martin flew home from Germany for the event,
and Ed made his way down from Kidderminster, but a lot of initial promise eventually fell
away to a core of Sara, Emma and Chris, plus Peter Hollingbery as Watford's sole
representative. This year's qualifying round had been arranged as six groups of four
teams, with each group containing one of the six teams from last year's final, plus one of
the six teams from last year's plate final, with the top two teams from each group going
through to this year's main final and plate final. We didn't stand much chance against
Southport or St Albans - depleted team or not - but the guys from Southport were really
really helpful in pointing out our weaknesses and where we could improve our gameplay, so
it's nice to see that some people still play the game for the love of the game, and are
willing to help others to improve.
Having been relegated to the lower twelve, we then engaged in a knockout tournament against the other lower echelon teams. An unfortunate draw and a no-show from Chris saw five of us pitched agaiinst Batley in the first game of the day - a very hard-fought game which we were unlucky to lose 3-1 - to then have to immediately play a second game after that against Dunstable. Much as we hated to do it - Martin had a bet with Helen Field riding on this match - we decided to scratch this match and conserve our energies for later games that we did stand a chance of winning with five players. Two wins and two defeats later, we had finished our day in sixth place, which was an OK result under the circumstances. Next year will be different . . .
13th-14th Feb 99: CTDC third and seventh in Slovenia tournament. The TDC's second two-team tournament and our first return, see here for a full report of a great weekend.
18th Jan 99: Home match against St Albans. We should have had a bit more of a chance in this game, as we were on home ground, and playing a team that were not only not the national champions, but also had not even competed in either of the national events for more than a year. However, they showed us the kind of form that had got them into the top six prior to their sudden disappearance, and ran out winners by a scoreline of 6-0. From Sara: "We, not surprisingly, lost against St Albans - 6-0. They were very slick and fast in the water, and were a friendly bunch in the pub afterwards".
11th Jan 99: Away match against West Wickham. Well, we were never going to win this one, with West Wickham making up half the GB Mens Masters team that won silver at last year's World Championships. From Sara: "We did give them quite a good run for their money before losing 6-1. It was a very clean game and the guys were very complimentary about our playing. So we've put Chesham on the map!"
9th Jan 99: Inter-Regional Championships at Crystal Palace. This was not a tournament for Chesham as a whole, but a tournament in which all the clubs in the Eastern & Central region made up a team to compete again similar compilation teams from the various other regions. Martin played for the Eastern & Central Mens team, and Sara was due to play for the Eastern & Central Womens team, but it turned out that they had twelve players, so Sara ended up helping out the rather depleted Southern team instead.
The E&C Mens team should have been very strong, but our five current and former GB internationals from Northampton were at the last moment plucked from the team to make up a "Northern(!) Masters" team, which left us with five players and a big problem. Fortunately, we managed to acquire four members of the Australian national teams to make up our numbers, and they almost single-handedly took us through to win our group. However, a 20-minute sudden-death second half in our last game really took it out of us, and a five-minute break was nowhere near long enough to recover before playing the final against the Southern Masters. Neverthless, we did not disgrace ourselves with the 3-1 result.
The Southern Ladies won most of their matches, and it looked like they finished the tournament in second place. However, it subsequently turned out that they had just been pipped by the Eastern & Central Ladies (Sara's own team!) on goal average. Further details of the Ladies Tournament to follow.
21st & 28th Dec 98: Pool closed - no Octopush. Chesham Leisure Centre will be closed for annual maintenance over the Christmas period, and there will be no Octopush on either Monday 21st December or on Monday 28th December. The next club session will take place on Monday 4th January 1999.
26th-28th Nov 98: Sara, Ed and Martin represent the UK Barbarians in
South Africa. The UK Barbarians' big trip for 1998 saw three teams head down to the
land of the Krugerrand to take part in the South African "Interclubs" club
championships. Two mens teams and a ladies team acquitted themselves well to each finish
mid-table in their respective divisions amid competition from some *very* strong local
club teams, some of which surpassed the standard of many countries' national teams. All
three players took some extra time to see something of this fantastic country: Ed headed
south-west to Cape Town, while Sara and Martin headed north-east to the game reserves, and
really wild things. A full report of the trip will be appearing on Sara's web site in due course.
14th Nov 98: Second at Nautilus Tournament at Crystal Palace. Our first tournament since joining the B.O.A., we finished second in the newly-introduced Division 4 (new teams division) behind LLWCHWR of Wales (where else?) and were very pleased with our performances, in particular a 7-0 win against Spectrum Angels who until then had been consistently scoring higher than us against the same opponents. Good times ahead . . .
14th Nov 98: CTDC third in Turnhout tournament. Only four die-hards flying the TDC flag, see here for a full report of the weekend.
13th-14th Sep 98: CTDC third and fifth in Bologna tournament. The TDC's first two-team tournament, see here for a full report of a great weekend.
Sep 98: B.O.A. registration and London League membership. For the first time ever, Chesham Octopush Club has registered with the British Octopush Association for the 1998/9 season. We will be competing in the London League as a joint team with Watford, which should hopefully give us a pretty strong team. Watch here and on the Fixtures List for further details.
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