* Tour Summaries * 

Updated 21st Jul 2002. Site: www.reedconsulting.com/ctdc; mirror: www.bigfoot.com/~reedconsulting/ctdc

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as well as the two home tournaments, in 2000 and 2001.

26th October 2002: CTDC wins fourth Dublin Tournament! //INTRO//  The tour report is far from complete but can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 237Kb) can be found here.

3rd November 2001: South Coast takes title in second home tournament. Our second home tournament was a rather smaller affair, organised pretty much at the last minute. However, defending champions G.O.V. brought over a team, a group came from Bologna, and an amalgamated Bournemouth/Southampton team came up from the South Coast to join the Chesham and CTDC teams. The guest list was:

	GOV Bussum (Netherlands)		Bologna Plus (Italy)		South Coast (UK)
	Chesham		CTDC

and the tournament was won by the South Coast team. For full details of the tournament, see here.

26th May 2001: CTDC sixth in Bussum Tournament.

A welcome return to our third-ever tournament location: Bussum, just outside Amsterdam, and the home of our old friends GOV. Seven of us went over: the report is barely started, but will be found here.

7th April 2001: CTDC last in Paris Tournament. This tournament was supposed to have A- and B- divisions, and as the tournament clashed with the BOA National Finals at Crystal Palace (we were eliminated at the semi-final stage) we asked to enter a team for the B-division.. However, by the time we got there all the B-division teams had dropped out (maybe they knew something we didn't!), so not only did we have to play most of the best teams in Europe, such as Cergy-Pontoise and Argonauta, we had to play them twice! In a 3.8m pool!
Fortunately, a few friends came to our rescue and helped us out in a number of our games, but it was not enough to stop us from coming last. However, we greatly enjoyed the tournament - shame we couldn't find the party! The tour report is now complete and can be found here.

December 2000: Second Barcelona Tournament. Sadly we were given only three weeks notice of this tournament, which followed straight after the Dublin trip and also clashed with the Swansea tournament, so we were not able to raise a team, which was a pity as we won it last year (see the still incomplete 1999 tour report). However, there's always next year. . .

No Turnhout Tournament this year. As predicted by Danny last year, there will be no Turnhout tournament this year, as the town still has no team. However, Danny's boys football team is getting on well. Maybe one day they will take up Octopush...

25th November 2000: CTDC fifth and sixth in second Dublin Tournament. Last year we took two teams and came second and fourth (joint third on points, but with an inferior goal difference); this year we again took two teams, but with only fifteen players we had to split ourselves seven and eight, and despite bags of enthusiasm we were unable to replicate last year's results, and ended up fifth and sixth. Last year's tour report (still far from finished, but last updated 11th January 2000) can be found here and the now finished 2000 tour report can be found here.

21st October 2000: CTDC fifth and sixth in first ever Home Tournament. Our first home tournament, with invitees as everyone who has invited us to their tournament, plus local UK regional teams, Chesham club players and scratch teams drawn from the pool of players that have supported the TDC over the years. The guest list was:

	GOV Bussum (Netherlands)		Dublin (Ireland)		Kingsbridge (UK)
	UISP Bologna (Italy)		CTDC Team X		CTDC Team Y
	"Southern Superstars" (UK)		"London Calling" (UK)		"Midland Maestros" (UK)

For full details of the tournament, see here.

9th-10th September 2000: CTDC fifth in third Bologna tournament. The third year of the tournament, and we have attended every one. This time, although as always a scratch team, it was a pretty strong one, and a fairly easy draw in the groupings allowed us the time to get our acts together before we hit the playoffs. Unfortunately, though, the playoffs put us in quick succession against the French Men and UISP Bologna, who ended up being the two finalists. Narrow defeats in both games put us into the bottom half of the playoffs, though we did rally well to win our remaining two games, ending up in fifth position. The Tour Report can be found here. Also see here for the Tour Handbook, here for the 1998 report and here for the still incomplete 1999 report.

August 2000: German tour cancelled. Sadly the proposed inaugural German tournament hasn't come off this year, but hopefully next year. More details as they become available.

15th-16th July 2000: CTDC fourth in inaugural Seagames, Bari, Italy. A new location for us, and definitely better weather than we were having in England! The Seagames was a collection of all water-related and sea-related sports, including finswimming, underwater orienteering, beach volleyball and so on. Only three of us went from the UK, but we joined forces with Racing Roma, headed by our old friend Electra, to make us a pretty useful team of eight. We were under strict instructions to bring "women and novices", but that wasn't paid much attention by the winning team - they brought five members of the Italian national team! We came fourth, but did manage to educate the locals to pint-snorkelling, so we certainly made our mark! The tour report - text complete but still with many photos to come - can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 1.2Mb) can be found here.

13th May 2000: CTDC second at third appearance in Orkney.
This was our third visit to this annual 5-on-5 tournament in what was until recently the most northerly Octopush-playing point in the British Isles (now overtaken by Shetland), and we replicated our 1998 form by finishing second. Peter has written a short report which can be found here: the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 2.1Mb) can be found here. Also, see here for the 1998 report and here for the 1999 report.

4th March 2000: Memorial Mesareca Tournament, Slovenia. We went there with one team in 1998, and - with the exception of Italy - were the only competing team from outside the former Yugoslavia. We also went there with two teams in 1999, but this time we knew about the party . . .

This year the Memorial Mesareca tournament coincided with the B.O.A. Nationals, so all but two of our team were players who would not otherwise have been playing in the Nationals. A possibly less strong team - we finished tenth out of sixteen - but certainly a lot of fun. As with the previous year's event, the Memorial Mesareca tournament had been arranged to coincide with the "Pust", aka National Masquerade Week. and we followed up our Star Wars theme for 1999 with a punk theme. Jesenice, the location of this year's Pust, didn't know what had hit it! The tour report can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 2.2Mb) can be found here.

4th-5th December 1999: CTDC wins Barcelona Tournament! With less than two weeks notice, we put a team together and trooped off to the first-ever "City of Barcelona" tournament. CIB, the host club, had asked for national-strength teams, so a few new faces were brought in to supplement the familiar faces of Eryl, Keith, Andy and Martin. We started off with a 2-2 draw against old friends Slovenia and then won our games against Toulouse, Barcelona and Marseille to go through into the play-offs in first place. We met Slovenia again, but this time we managed to win, and then went on for a rematch against Toulouse in the final. This was one of the most hair-raising - and thrilling for the spectators - games we have seen in a long time (other than the regular Chesham1-Chesham2 battles, of course), and both teams held the lead at various stages, before we just scraped through 4-3. The tour report - now getting somewhere due to the arrival of a quantity of aircraft sick-bags(!), and last updated 26th February - can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 404Kb) can be found here.

20th November 1999: CTDC *last* in Turnhout Tournament, Belgium :-(  Danny and the gang were obviously so impressed with our touring and drinking abilities (see here for what we got up to last year) that back in April they invited us back to the 1999 rematch of OWHAT's Turnhout's annual tournament. The tournament was won convincingly by Mark Sullivan's new touring team, The Puckaholics, while the TDC team came last, but were the last still standing at the party, so it depends on how you define winning and losing . . . The tour report can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 398Kb) can be found here.

23rd October 1999: CTDC second and fourth in Dublin, Ireland. To us a new and long-awaited venue. We took two teams to the tournament; and came second and fourth (joint third on points, but with an inferior goal difference). The tour report (still far from finished, but last updated 11th January) can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 237Kb) can be found here.

11th Sep 1999: CTDC third and fifth in Bologna, Italy. We maintained our 100% attendance record at the Bologna tournament, following our appearance last year at the inaugural outing (see here for a full report). Last year we took two teams and came third and fifth; this year we took two teams and came third and fifth. The difference, however, was that this time it was the second team that came third, and the first team that came fifth: quite a surprise. The tour report can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 329Kb) can be found here.

No Bussum Tournament this year. The G.O.V. tournament '98 was our second-ever full-team tournament, and excellent fun (discounting, that is, the in-water phase on the Saturday afternoon!). Unfortunately, this tournament is not being held this year, as it proved impossible to raise teams due to the distraction of the European Championships in Slovenia that were being held at the same time. However, Max has promised us that "next year we'll have to make up for it by breaking some old records".

8th May 1999: CTDC eighth out of nine at the Orkney 5-on-5 Tournament :-( . We went there in 1998 (see here for a full report) and obviously didn't cause enough mayhem, because we got invited back. It was supposed to be the original five - Doug, Ed, Keith, Martin and Sara - returning for the 1999 bash, but a previous quip about "we know better than to expect Doug to commit to anything until about a week before the event", sadly turned into reality, and we lost Doug to a traffic cop two weeks before the event, and then Ed to a monster cold two days before the event. Three old hands and three new friends-on-loan therefore made up the TDC team: the report is pretty well finished bar photographs and can be found here; the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 466Kb) can be found here.

13th-14th Feb 1999: CTDC third and seventh in Memorial Mesareca Tournament, Slovenia. Our first ever return trip and only our second with two teams. Considering that for nearly half the players it was their first "Touring and Drinking Club" outing, and that - as with last year's combination - many of the players had not even met before that weekend, both teams gelled remarkably well and everyone really played their hearts out to finish third and seventh out of fifteen teams - an excellent result.

As with the previous year's event, the Memorial Mesareca tournament had been arranged to take place at the end of "National Masquerade Week" and another very surreal Saturday night was spent in the streets and bars of Kranj. This time, however, we came prepared, and our team themes of Star Wars characters for the men and cats for the women were greatly appreciated by local residents and fellow competitors alike. See here for the tour report and here for the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 496Kb).

14th November 1998: CTDC third in Turnhout Tournament, Belgium. Despite early promises from lots of players, it was left to only four hardened drinkers to fly the Chesham flag at Turnhout. Doug led the team, which comprised himself plus Rob Shipley, Chris Bommer of Watford and Ralph Fearnhead of the "London Men", and with help from various players from the other teams they finished an excellent third. For a full report of the weekend; in and out of the water, see here.

12th Oct 1998: CTDC "bad for the sport". It's official! The Chesham Octopush Touring and Drinking Club was yesterday denounced as being "very bad for the image of Octopush". If travelling hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles to attend Octopush tournaments is "bad for the sport", then maybe we are. If banding together a group of players from many different clubs who would not otherwise get the chance to tour with their own clubs, and taking them somewhere that they would otherwise never get the chance to go is "bad for the sport", then maybe we are. I dare say that the organisers of tournaments in the Orkney Islands, Slovenia, Italy and the other places to which we have taken teams may disagree, but surely everyone is entitled to their own opinion . . .

12th-13th September 1998: CTDC third and fifth of eight in Bologna, Italy. Our third and so far largest full-team expedition took us to the first-ever "Citta di Bologna" tournament in Bologna, Italy. We took two teams, and for the first time we had an international flavour, with two guests from UIUC Illinois, USA as well as Dejan from Yugoslavia who we had met in Slovenia in February. This time there were no personality clashes, and we finished third and fifth out of eight, although we were disappointed not to have maintained our half-way position of first and joint second. An all-Chesham final would have been great, but it was not to be; maybe next year. See here for a full report of the weekend, and here for the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 496Kb).

27th Jun 1998: CTDC *last* of eight in G.O.V. Tournament, The Netherlands. Humbug! Our third tournament - and second full-team expedition - was to the annual G.O.V. tournament in Bussum in The Netherlands, three short train stops outside Amsterdam in the direction of Hilversum. The unique point about this tournament is that everyone camps around the pool, so the weekend was basically "roll out of the tent into the water, roll out of the water into the bar, and roll out of the bar back into the tent". We entered into the spirit of things, as the occasion deserved, but we just *can't* get through to our London cousins to do the same. On a previous occasion and on this occasion they came over and stayed in a hotel in Amsterdam, which isn't really entering into the spirit of the thing, so we did it properly - eleven of us in Chris' twelve-man marquee! Oh yes, we played some Octopush as well, but the less said about that the better. See here for a full report of the weekend, both in and out of the water, and here for the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 425Kb).

9th May 1998: CTDC 2nd of eight in Orkney. Our second expedition took us to a 5-on-5 in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. Again, it was Ed's idea, no surprise! This time we hired a car, which everyone said was the best way to do it, but it was certainly a long way - it took a day and a half to get there! The five were Sara, Doug, Ed, Martin and Keith, and we competed against Edinburgh, the Reef Rats from Aberdeen, Inverness, and various teams from Orkney itself. See here for a full report of the weekend and here for the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 374Kb).

20th-22nd February 1998: CTDC 4th of eleven in Slovenia. The inaugural outing for the Chesham Octopush Touring and Drinking Club's overseas tours took us to Kranj, Slovenia for the 2nd Annual "Memorial Bostjana Mesareca" Underwater Hockey Tournament. Many of the players had not even met before arriving at the airport, let alone be familiar with each other's playing styles, so the overall 4th place out of 11 teams that we achieved was an excellent result. Check out the tour report for a full report of the weekend, both in and out of the water, and the promotional poster (A4, Adobe Acrobat PDF, 1.8Mb).

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