We shall be having a little throw in tournament which will be pretty exciting to take part in or to watch…

Newbies and vets very welcome to come play, have a go, hang out, watch, drink beer, do tricks on the sidelines…whatever…come along!

Plus spicy pumpkin soup and beers and music and lots of fun!

Good Luck!!!

Have ace fun!!!

Did I mention I am WELL jealous..

The films were well ace even the bit where we all shouted “Bikes Rock” but Adam’s constant commentry and whoops of excitement at any fixie tricks was the bestest bit..and we all loved the film about scraper bikes.

Then on Sunday we all went to play polo!

It was well ace with 32 teams in total playing from Cambridge, London, Oxford and Manchester. The games were pretty tense but none as tense as the final wich consisted of BAD from London and Netto from Manchester (how ace is that). Despite yelling and cheering like crazy and some amazing shots and tackles from Netto, BAD ended up winning…Well done BAD! but Netto came second which is totally ace… The other teams from manchester played amazingly well too and it just shows that practice makes amazing polo players…

Netto Superstars

Chan, Mirek + Snoops

ASBO POLO

Adam, Woody + Ste

Mango Sharks

Hannah, Simon + Braley

The Ref

The next day some people stayed over again and went to play more polo

We all had an amazing time..thanks london x x

European Hardcourt Polo Championships:

so we are on twitter which means it’s super easy for you to find out where and when we are playing. We move around a bit you see because the courts are different in different weather. e.g. Whitworth Park is real slippy if it’s raining but otherwise is a great court..so, yeah, check the twitter before you set off..ace

I Bike MCR Polo Tournament 2009 Photo Pool

Dear Poloistas,

The EHBPC committee is excited to announce the registration for the firstever European Hard-court Bike Polo Championships!

Registration:
Registration will open on Saturday, April 25 at 12pm GMT. You will be ableto register at www.ehbpc.org. It will cost £60 per team and the fee ispayable upon registering.

When registering you will be given the option to upload an image or logothat represents your team, and space to write anything you would like therest of Europe to know about your team. Please also let us know if youwould like us to accommodate you. If you are coming with girlfriends,boyfriends, cheerleaders, kids or your pet monkey please let us know assoon as possible.

We will be posting all registered teams on the website as confirmationthat your team is registered and so that Europe can see who is coming torepresent their city in the first of many European Championships!

The important details:
The tourney will take place over two days on August 1st & 2nd 2009.We are capping the tourney at 40 teams and registration will be on a firstcome, first serve basis.

In London we are voluntarily capping ourselves at 4 teams. We want to beable to host teams from all across Europe and because of the limited spaceat the tournament we ask that all of the polo communities get coordinatedand limit the registration of each city to four (4) teams (Paris,Karlsruhe, Berlin we mean you!). We’re excited to play teams that we’venever played before as we’re sure you are too. So if your city has morethan 4 fantastic teams please decide within your community which teamsshould represent your city.

We have already heard of cities organising qualifying tournaments to raisefunds for the travel expenses of the winning teams. This is a great ideaand inspiring to hear! Here in London we will have many more people comingto cheer than to play so if your team doesn’t make the cut make sure tostill come and support your city! With so many courts in London there willbe plenty of throw-ins. Whether you’re competing officially or not youwill get some good polo while you’re here.

We will keep you all updated if space for additional teams becomesavailable, however with the popularity of polo in Europe this year, we’re pretty sure registration will fill up fast so get in there quickly!

The weekend:
While the tournament itself will be Saturday and Sunday with events in theevenings there will also be lots to do the Friday and Monday on eitherside and we hope you will join us for that. We will update you at thewebsite as these plans develop.

The excitement in London towards hosting this first ever tournament iselectric and we can’t wait to have you all here. If you have anyquestions, suggestions or the like for us, please feel free to contact matt@ehbpc.org

Cheers,
The EHBPC London Committee
www.ehbpc.org

words by Vidal

15 teams from France, London, Oxford and even Seattle turned up in addition to our wondrous home grown teams Including:

NanoAdamZoe (Seattle/MCR/Oxford)

aidenandjasonanddavepoloteaminmcr (London)

MCR Dropouts (MCR)

Team Glob (MCR)

Black Rebel Bike Club (London)

Seattle Supershitheads (Seattle)

Corussk8ordie (Oxford)

Dans tu gueule puceau (Paris)

Guffnuts (MCR)

Sitting Ducks (london)

Malice (London)

Los Conos (London)

The Toffs (Oxford)

Cutters (MCR)

Zombie (London)

It was a beautiful sunny day and teams started to turn up at 9am to Chorlton Park to play some warm up games before the tourney began. Wayne came prepared with an intricate system of how the games should be run that he’s spent days working on to make sure every team could play more than one game despite only having one day to do it in.

After I had registered each teams and drawn who they were to play I asked everyone to sit on the grass in the sun to discuss the rules, making sure everyone was aware of the more obvious ones and then discussing together some of the more contentious ones. We all came to easy agreements about how we would play and then the first round began.

FIRST ROUND

NanoAdamZoe 0 – AJD 5

Dropouts 4 0 Team Glob 1

Black Rebel 1 – Seattle 5

Corussk8ordie 0 – Dans tu gueule pucea 5

Guffnuts 3 – Sitting Ducks 5

Los Conos 0 – Malice 3

The Toffs 2 – Cutters 0

Zombie drew a free pass to round 2

After the first round we got the vegan BBQ lit and everyone ate delicous hot dogs and drank ice cold beers in the sunshine on the grass whilst the games and suspense continued…

Round 2

Winners

Zombie 2 – AJD 3

Dropouts 0 – Seattle 5

Dans tu gueule pucea 5 – Sitting Ducks 1

Malice 2 – Toffs 1

Losers

Corussk8ordie – Guffnuts

Los Conos 3 – Cutters 0

Team Glob 0 – Black Rebel 5

Round 3

Winners

AJD 0 – Seattle 5

Dans tu gueule pucea 2 – Malice 3

Losers

Zombie 5 – Guffnuts 0

Los Conos 0 – Dropouts 5

NAZ 3 – Sitting Ducks 4

Black Rebel 5 – Toffs 2

Round 4- Losers

Zombie 3 – Dropouts 0

Sitting Ducks 4 – Black Rebel 3

Round 5 Losers

Dans tu gueule pucea 2 – Zombie 1

AJD 5 – Sitting Ducks 1

Round 6 Losers

Zombie – AJD (win)

Semi Finals

Winners Bracket

Seattle (win) – Malice

Losers Bracket

AJD – Malice (win)

Final

Seattle (win) – Malice (5-3)

After their match Malice and Seattle swapped shirts and everyone cheered and hollered and the minute they left the court everyone threw i their mallets for more casual games.

Then we gathered in a circle on the grass for the prizegiving and to thank everyone for coming and for such an ace day.

Followed by more games and more beer!!!

Thanks to everyone that made this tourney possible: people for travelling to play, people that cooked hotdogs, people that gave out flyers and posters, the designer of the publicity, people who spent hours and hours thinking of how the games could work etc etc.  Hope everyone comes back again next year!!!

With polo and warm mulled wine

Bring a bike you don’t mind getting whacked with a mallet and, if you have
one, a mallet, if not borrow one of ours.

Everyone welcome, whether you’ve played before or not

If you don’t wanna play come and hang out and watch us play!

We are going to start playing in teams so that we are ready for the 2009
polo tournamnets, so now is a great time to play

See you there

nes x x