IRON 5 2007
Adriano (former captain who lurks on here every so often), Barry
(ex-Jester, now a PhD student at Uriel), Quizler, Joel and myself
travelled to Plymouth for Iron 5 this weekend under the most awesome
team name of Grosse Point Block.
Iron 5 is where you play the whole weekend without substitutes.
Plymouth is a long way away. I drove around 600 miles in total, took
around two complete tanks of fuel and a very long time. 32 teams had
signed up, 2 dropped out leaving us in a pool of 7.
We started the Saturday badly, losing 9-1 to Hawk-Eye (mostly UEA
guys, plus Gash from Mohawks, plus another dude). We had no structure
or coherence or anything, and the zone we thought would work
wonders... didn't. However, we then won the next 4 games on Saturday,
some comfortably, some more awkwardly, to leave the sports hall
optimistic about how things could go. We'd discovered that our Iso was
slicing through easily, unless the opposition did Zone, in which case
it normally got put over the top for Ad or Joel to bid on. We took an
hour to drive around 4 miles to the hostel, because I've got a
terrible sense of direction and took useless notes with me and no map.
Anyway, wandered off looking for food, ended up eating The World's
Greatest Burgers (their claim). To be entirely fair, they were pretty
damn good burgers. World's Greatest is p'raps pushing it, but hey.
Spent the party sitting downstairs in a Scream bar going "I'm really
tired and am going to fall asleep really soon", listening to the guys
from Fantastic Five (Too Many Pies) tell dirty stories and being glad
that we live in the Midlands. Did you know that in Plymouth the Scream
pub doesn't do Yellow Cards? "We're cheap all the time" they said.
"Oh", I said, as I was charged £1.20 for a pint of Cola. The Dry Dock
is even more fantastic now than I previously thought. Ad threw up a
lot, all over the table. Some guy we were sharing a room with in the
hostel (was like a dorm) snored like a wildebeest.
Sunday, and because I've got a terrible sense of direction and took
useless notes with me and no map, it took us at least half an hour
over what it should have to find the sports hall again. Comfortable
final pool game and crossover to leave us guaranteed Top 8. 6-3
(quarter final) game versus Why Is Andrew Lugsdin So Dangerous?, who
had looked like being th strongest team in the whole tournament. For
reference, Andrew Lugsdin is the captain of Canada Open, and probably
one of the best players on the planet. That they're aware of him and
formed a team name based around a commentary on a DVD, implies that
they were pretty clued up at the least. And they were very very good.
We took the first two points and traded up until 6-4, when they turned
it right on and we couldn't quite keep up. 6-7 (semi final) game now
against a team we had beaten in our pool. They'd figured out exactly
how to stop our Iso, despite being almost entirely schoolkids. They
were fantastic, made almost no mistakes, and our considerable age
advantage over them counted for nothing as we couldn't keep
up. Oops. Final against Big Yellow Hat (Brighton-based players,
including Felix from Pushpass.org), another team who'd looked very
strong over the weekend. And we beat them, which was awesome.
So we finished 7th. Jesters? 7th? That's definitely novel. But totally
absolutely awesome. Got given a pint glass and t-shirts, which was
good since I'd run out of non-smelly clothes and now had a clean
t-shirt to wear in the car journey home.
BUT THE WEEKEND WASN'T OVER THERE!
Ad heads to the train station to journey back to London. Barry, Joel,
Quizler, Kier (who lives in Leicester, was playing with Awaiting Welsh
Translation) and myself pile into the car to head home. Turn the
key... nothing. Chugga-chugga-chugga... nothing. Petrol's gone. I ask
Alex (who played with Lords and knows Blue Arse Flies) for a lift to
the petrol station and spend a fiver on a petrol can, then another
fiver on petrol, before going back to the car to put it in. Turn the
key... varoom. We have liftoff. Head back immediately to the petrol
station to fill up properly, and off we go. We get to Exeter to drop
off Barry, and realise that we've got 3 hours and 18 minutes before
Match Of The Day 2 starts, and so to get back to Leicester. We boom up
the M5, stop for a KFC, continue booming. Hit the M42 North-East at
Bromsgrove, it's so totally on. Get to the M6, sweet. About 45 minutes
to home from here... we can do this. Five minutes later I realise that
I'd accidentally got onto the M6 North, rather than South. Nuts. I've
got a terrible sense of direction and took useless notes with me and
no map. Turn around as soon as we can and head back South, blitz
through the M69 and outer ringroad. I missed about 15 minutes in all
after dropping people off, which is pretty damn impressive, even if it
only had to happen because I've got a terrible sense of direction and
took useless notes with me and no map.
Ah well. Should rrrrrrreally get around to writing my essays now.
Edd