2002-6 (Adriano Scarampi).
I have had the pleasure to play for Jesters for 2 and a half academic years (half of 2002/2003, 2003/2004 and 2005/2006), and playing for this club has definitely been the most rewarding (and sometimes frustrating) ultimate experience ever.
I joined Jesters in November 2002. At the time the club was in expansion. Following a few successful years and a fairly successful fresher’s fair with plenty of new promising recruits and lots of experienced players still around from the years before, things were looking good for the club. Captain at the time was Michael “Biscuit” Broder. The rest of the committee (as far as I can remember) was comprised by Rachel, Nick “Bullitt” Johnson, Paul Marsden and James Tanner.
First tournament of the year was Loughborough beginners, where the club sent two teams. As I said, the beginners this year were very promising, and they eventually formed the backbone of the club for the following three academic years. Jake Harvey, Al “Evo” Evans, Ben “Quizler” Matthews, the legendary Luke “Mumbles” Gleadhall, Matt “Matt/Mark” Hall, Pete “Scary Pete” Boakes and myself were among the several beginners recruited at the time.
On the ultimate side of things, the club achieved very good results indoors, doing reasonably well at Midlands Regionals, qualifying to Not the Nationals (nowadays called Div2) and coming an impressive 4th. Other members of the first team worth mentioning were Barry “Murray” Evans, Olly and Jake Gardner. At the time the club used to mainly focus on the indoors game, and outdoor practices were fairly sporadic and not very well attended. As most first team players only used to play indoors, the club sent a developing team to Outdoor Nationals (SNOUT, in Swindon), packed with beginners and only 3-4 experienced players. This was my first tournament ever, and I will never forget my first victory against an incredibly fought game against Mohawks. We then also won another game (possibly against Mwnci See), and ended the tournament in 22nd position out of 33ish).
This year also saw the club falling out with the local team Red. Inter-team politics meant that the two clubs stopped practicing together, Jesters stopped feeding their new players into the Open team and Red stopped coaching Jesters. Overall a loss for everyone, and the Ultimate scene in Leicester struggled for the following two/three years.
So it was the end of 2002/2003, and at the AGM the committee for the following year was elected. The new captain was James Tanner, treasurer Paul Marsden, Second team Captain was Nick Johnson and Social secretaries Barry “Murray” Evans and myself.
The year 2003/2004 was a difficult year for Jesters. A very poor fresher’s fair and arguments between team members slowly destroyed the club. The committee lost interest, an average of 4-5 people started to come to practice (if only there was a “hot box” university tournament I am sure we would have won nationals hands down), and the only few people who were still interested in the club were the beginners from the year before. The only good news was that we had managed to recruit one (ONE!!) beginner: Luke “Cloggy” Tribe. Recruiting is probably not the right word; "forced to join" is probably been the best way to describe it. Highlight must have been when we literally kidnapped Cloggy from his summer ball to force him to come with us to Beachfest. But this is another story I’ll better explain in a bit.
So the club slowly fell apart, and a few of us decided to form our alternative team: “the Unflushables” (www.geocities.com/utlimate_unflushables). The Unflushables was a fun-at-all-costs, spin-off team of Jesters. As the committee was rubbish we went to our own tournaments and taught ultimate to each other: hammers and music, that’s the way forward. So we went to Norwich Indoors, won a couple of games and had one of the most eventful tournaments ever including being kicked out of the house we were staying at by the police and where the infamous “why don’t you like me” quote was born. We then somehow managed to get into Beachfest and had an awesome time playing (and losing every game) against teams such as Fire of London and GB Masters.
So this was the end of my second year in Leicester and time to leave the UK for a year. Lots of players left, and the club was eventually left in the hands of Jake Harvey. Other elected committee members were Mumbles and I can’t remember who really.
This year was another struggle for jesters. The objective was to keep the club alive and recruit just enough people to keep it going for the year after. Jake did a fantastic job in running training sessions with hardly any players and in keeping the spirit alive. Despite everything a couple of important players were recruited. Alex “the Lean” Lean and Francesca “Cesca” Scarampi (who both eventually played for Great Britain) were recruited alongside with Matt “Scouse” Jankowski, Pete “Smeegs” Morley, Jo “Pickles” Purves, Caroline Wade and, later in the year, Dave Heavens. Something worth mentioning that happened this year was the birth of the “Mumbles Dance”, which made his debut at Sheffield Beginners (I think). Ask old team members what the dance is about and I’m sure they can explain it to you.
The club took part to a couple of tournaments such as Indoor regionals, Div 2 indoor nationals (where we came last), and Outdoor regionals where in horrible conditions, hail and gale force wind an ironman team finished last.
So Jesters somehow made it to the end of another academic year all in one piece. Hopes were high for the year after. Very few people were going to leave the club, and some important names were coming back: Quizler after his year in the States, Matt Greef to do a Masters and myself from Spain. It was time to rebuild the club from scratch and teach everyone who Jesters are.