Since the beginning of UWH in Zürich at the end of 2008 we had heard that there was a team in Mulhouse in France, just north of Basel, but until this year had not been able to make contact with them. However, thanks to Alex Garcia, a French-Canadian player living in Basel, we were finally able to make contact with them, and played in a tournament in Mulhouse in March. But that story has already been told.

The club in Mulhouse has its club night on Wednesday evening and a second physical training session on Sunday afternoons, but the midweek evening session coupled with the distance from Zürich meant that it had never been practical to go and join in. Until now...

In May of this year I started a new job with IBM in Basel, and so suddenly Mulhouse was only 25 minutes away instead of an hour and a half, so I made contact with the club coach and was told that I would be very welcome to join them.

As it happened, the session for which I was going to join them was the last in the open air pool before the club's summer closure, and it was delightfully refreshing to drop into a Freibad on a warm summer evening after a long day's work.

The two most experienced players in the club were the coach, Stephane, and his wife Celine, so I was put on Celine's team against Stephane. All goals were very closely fought, but my team just managed to run out the winners. After that it was back to the clubhouse for a well-earned beer.

On 9th October the USZ-UWH team played in a tournament in Mulhouse. Report to follow in the next Flaschenpost.

Martin Reed