Glasgow’s first competitive outing of the 2014 Outdoor season commenced with an epic pilgrimage in the GUSA flagship down to Cardiff. 13 heroes undertook the 10 hour journey which was punctuated by the usual service station delicacies, contact, and Yahtzee. Such is our love of the M6 at Glasgow Ultimate (any real member spends 48 hours a year ‘’somewhere near Preston’’) that driver Rory decided to boldly fake long past Birmingham, cut under North up the same stretch we’d just covered for a while before going for the true deep cut south again into Wales! After dumping 4 chumps at a Travelodge we settled down at the pitchside campsite (Harry had kindly been guarding our site for many hours) in our cosy tents in the rain at 3am. Bliss.
Captain Jonny was up first at the crack of dawn, presumably to do some bird watching, muck out his tent, and rouse the rest of the team. Unfortunately he didn’t fully arouse us as the first match against Bristol was a slow start and a 15-8 defeat, but it blew the cobwebs away if nothing else. The next game against Cambridge was also pretty tough but we improved to 15-9. The Glasgow motor was starting to splutter to life. Unfortunately it was cut from a V13 to a V12 engine as Tom went out with a ‘’bolloxed knee’’ (his own diagnosis) after attempting an unorthodox slalom cut through the endzone vertical stack. Finally with a bit of rage and a jump start from Phil we got into gear with a win against Shiny Happy Meeple, with Katie Voss linking up with the handler trio to slide through their tired zone defence. 14-8. A good way to finish the day’s play.
The evening’s entertainment involved a huge feed and many many bowls of salad. Banagrams and beers were had by a few back at the pitches, before another team got a bit too rowdy and started taking questionable nude selfies. This just isn’t Shaun’s kind of night. We left fairly early.
Day 2 saw many improvements on the pitch. Despite being exhausted the girls came through against the zone D’s proving it wasn’t just ‘’all the boys’’ as the opposing sideline chat seemed to think. There was some great wing play by Jess and cuts through the pain by Alison. Our newest experienced player Annie also unleashed a few cannon backhands into the endzone. We fought hard against RGS for a top 10 finish but didn’t go through the gears and suffered a 15-8 defeat. Injuries were starting to hit hard on the team and ibuprofen flowed, but the GU fitness schedule started to show in some of us, with Audrey running whoever marked her into the ground. We showed a lot of the classic GU grit to take our 5th match to 11-11 before missing our chances on Universe point, but morale was still high as the group of individuals had become a unit by now. The final game of MT1 was a grudge match against the old nemesis Black Eagles and it was a good one! Glasgow took a big lead with Sarah getting involved in our slick zone O, and Phil forcing a turnover in the eagle’s endzone. Brian brought down a few key grabs from Rory’s long shots to give us an edge. The Eagles tried to flap free from the fox’s jaws but despite a threatened comeback were put away in a 14-12 GU victory.
All in all our first Mixed Tour of 2014 was a success and an exciting building point for the rest of the season. Onwards and upward for Glasgow Ultimate!
Tom Calvert.