The Grapevine - 30/08

The Grapevine this week looks back at Nationals and a little forwards to xEUCF 2013! Plus a huge THANK YOU!

Congratulations go to Clapham, Iceni, Bear Cavalry and Zimmer who took the titles in their divisions! All results can be found via our Ultiapps reporter and more stats on the UTC app. Our UK and Irish reviews will be going up soon enough!

Make sure to check out the PushPass clips from Nationals and why not buy all 17 games for £10.99, bargain! 

Congrats to one of our authors James Burbidge for topping the UKU Fantasy Ultimate! Check out your scores!

Understanding Ultimate discusses what calls you should make from the sideline for a force, left/right or inside/around?

Check the British Thumber Time Ramones-esqe disc, it's swag!

Fifteen UK club teams will be in Bordeaux representing us in 4 divisions, our partners Get Horizontal have got the details of all the clubs there. 

We have reached a milestone! As of this morning the ShowGame has had over 50,000 views. We would like to THANK every single one of our readers and hope you continue to come back for more. Kind of crazy! 

But we are not done there, got any ideas? Want to contribute? Easy, click the link on the right and make the ShowGame even better! DP @ tSG.

World Games Review

Sophie Edmondson looks back at her amazing experience on our World Games team over in Cali, Colombia.

Arriving back in London from the World Games in Colombia has been a reality wake up. The tournament was the final part of what has been a nine-month journey made up of a seemingly endless trial followed by training weekends and relentless track sessions. It seems a long time to prepare for a tournament that was done and dusted in just two and a half days. Yet compared to other sports, say an Olympic weightlifter who spends four years working for just six lifts, that’s probably not a bad lead-in time. Regardless, after nine months of all-consuming commitment of time, energy, emotions and funds I was definitely ready to go to Cali and play.

As odd as it might sound the actual playing felt secondary to the experience of preparing for and being at the World Games. From the moment we landed in Colombia we were treated like celebrities (all-be-it z list). It seemed as though the whole of Colombia’s police force and army had descended on Cali; we had police outriders flanking our shiny new team bus and a designated police head honcho from Bogota to co-ordinate our every move. I could only presume the rest of Colombia was in turmoil because of it.

World Games Opening Ceremony Cali, Colombia. Courtesy of Isabella Burke.

The Grapevine - UKU Nationals 2013 Special

This weekend is probably the biggest domestic tournament of the season, so here at the ShowGame we have compiled ALL the information you need to follow at home! 

Read our previews in the three main divisions, please do comment also!

Official scores in the Open, Women's, Mixed and Masters divisions.

Take a look at the official stats using the new UTC mobile app.

As previously advertised we will also be trialling a score reporter (it's pretty swish) kindly created by the Ultiapps peeps, find it here for all four divisions in one place! 

No news on live stream yet, PushPass will be filming across the weekend with VOD following the tournament:

Post by Push Pass Productions.

For insightful commentary follow our twitter and for more from the TD's follow @ukunationals and @ukunat_scores.

The Fantasy UK Nationals has kicked off, join in and get voting for your top 7 in each division. 

So many ways to stay up to date with UKU Nationals, remember to use the #ukunationals hashtag and see you in Southampton! DP @ tSG.

UKU Open Nationals 2013

Josh Coxon Kelly previews the 2013 UK Open Nationals.

This weekend the 2013 UKU National Championships take place in Southampton and the tournament is more hyped than ever before. Even with the various controversies surrounding the Mixed and Women's divisions, the culmination of a tumultuous domestic Open season is looking to be ripe for drama. The return of national players at this point in the season is a sure-fire way to add excitement to start. This year sees both World Games and u23 squad players bringing invaluable international experience to their clubs, who having grown in their absence will be further boosted by their superstar homecomings.

Reigning champions Clapham come into the tournament after a formidable performance against some of USA ultimate’s best at the Chesapeake Invite. With the World Club Championships around the corner the pressure to retain both National and European titles will be sky high, and central players from both World Games and u23 will need to keep their focus in a busy season to retain the title.

However with the rise of EMO and the fall of Fire 1 at open tour, and numerous unexpected results from the UKU regional series Nationals has truly been blown wide open compared to the relatively predictable tournaments of the past. Manchester will feel hard done by with their route after clinching a shocker upset against Chevron in the northern region, and will be looking to get a W against opening matchup Fire 2 to give themselves another shot at the Ron. With the wound of last season's semi-final loss at the hands of Fire 1 still fresh, Chevron will be looking to show that they can rise all the way to the top amidst a fierce club scene.

UKU Mixed Nationals 2013

David Pryce previews this years UKU Mixed Nationals and qualifier for xEUCF 2013 in Bordeaux.

Last year saw the first Mixed Nationals being held over the same weekend as Open and Women's Nationals at the perennial Southampton venue. The division saw great success with 8 teams attending and Bear Cavalry coming out champs and not really being pushed at any point (The Brown getting closest 10-15). We could attribute this to most players choosing their Open and Women's teams over Mixed for the opportunity to go to Euros in Frankfurt. A stat to note is that there were still 6 Women's teams competing last year.

Looking to this years tournament we yet again have 8 teams but with even more top end tour teams that will provide truly exciting Mixed games:

• Cambridge go in top seed after a great season pushing the World Games and RGS throughout, and poaching the likes of

UKU Women's Nationals 2013

Charlie Blair previews Women's Nationals 2013.

With British clubs having been awarded four spots at xEUCF in the women’s division this year, it is a great shame that there isn’t an improvement upon the number of teams that competed at Nationals 2012. A further disappointment is that only four teams who consistently finished in the top half of the women’s tour this year have chosen to attend.

The most obvious absence is that of PUNT. Having had such an impressive season, completely un-phased by the more established opposition or indeed by the loss of leadership in Lily Huang and Lucy Barnes, they steadily climbed the rankings at tour, eventually finishing 3rd in Cardiff. Naturally, one would hope they would be hungry for a final come Nationals. However, the majority of this team, a team who had laid down the foundations to be real contenders in Europe this year, are instead representing in the mixed division.

PUNT then appear to encapsulate the wider grievance felt by some that the women’s division has been neglected, if not damaged,

The Grapevine - 15/08

This week's Grapevine has an international flavour, looking at some US perspectives on Ultimate in the UK and the world...

Clapham take on some of the best club teams in the US this weekend at the Chesapeake Invite. They are also playing in a fund raiser show game against Truck Stop. See Charlie Eisenhood's preview of the Open division.

Iamultimate presents an interesting view from above the recent World Under 23 Championships in Toronto.

Lou Burruss gives his two cents on the various nations' styles post World Under 23 and World Games - an interesting (if brief!) counterpoint to Dave Pichler's recent piece discussing international competition.

Benji provides us with two pieces this week looking at the sport from a wider perspective. The first is a piece on the unique element that Spirit of the Game brings to Ultimate, and the second approaches the increasingly relevant question of the need for observers.

UKU Nationals is approaching - keep an eye out for previews from tSG in the coming week!

Do you read an Ultimate blog that you think should be on here? Let us know! JCK @ tSG

The Grapevine - 09/08

The Grapevine: where Marvin Gaye heard it and where you hear all about UK Ultimate!

Nationals is only a couple weeks away and there are currently 7 Women's teams competing if you are not playing Mixed and can get a few friends together to form a team, go! It's a great tournament and worth the experience! So enter a team now and make it a full on 8 (or more) team division, maybe even cause an upset! 

Regionals has happened, read our coverage and also read how the Open Nationals brackets had to be amended giving us the first round games ready to go!

Benji writes about personal bias on the field in Understanding Ultimate.

In the ever present debate of USAU (observers) vs WFDF (let the players decide), Ultiworld have published an open letter to WFDF calling for observers in making line calls and sorting disputes at major WFDF events from 2014 written by one of the USAU Junior Coaches . A great read, sparking many comments; what do you think about it?

The German made ultimate film "The Invisible String" is available from amazon.de, sounds like it is amazing so go grab one and also looking forward to the "Flatball" documentary in October!

Finally this week has been the European Youth Ultimate Championship in Cologne, Germany. Great Britain have been fairing well and the 4 squads today will start by playing:
Junior Open - QF vs Switzerland [Finished 4th]
Junior Women - 5-8 Semi vs Czech Republic [Finished 7th]
U17 Open - 6W's last pool game vs Sweden  [Finished 1st: GOLD]
U17 Women - SF vs Austria [Finished 3rd: BRONZE]
Full results can be found on the ultiorganizer. A special mention goes out to the U17 Open squad who went 9-1 down to Austria, then 14-7 down and game point to comeback and win in sudden death 15-14. Watch their triumphant final score and en masse celebration, keep it up GB! 

Keep reading and commenting away! DP @ tSG. 

Closing the gap

David Pichler questions how large the gap between the Big Three and the rest of the world actually is.

In the last 2 weeks, USA Ultimate teams went 36-0.  4 golds.  Dang.

GB teams were competing in all these divisions which Team USA won.  Our medal count wasn't quite as prolific as our American counterparts, every returning player's suitcase was a little lighter than hoped.  Most, although not all, medals went to the countries in 'The Big Three'.

By The Big Three I am refering to USA, Canada and Japan.  These three nations seem to dominate when it comes to medals at the major international events.  In recent years GB have had the focus and talent to push these nations close but never seem able to make the leap from challengers to champions.  Why are these countries ever elusive to us?  That question can be best answered if we look first at what's getting us in with a shout to begin with.

USA U23 sweep the  Championship taking Gold in all three divisions. Photo courtesy of CMBT Creative.

UKU Regionals Results

This weekend saw 16 teams from 6 regions earn their place at UKU Nationals 2013 and the first round match ups they gain.

Full results

South West

1. Devon 1 (Q)
2. Devon 2 (Q)
3. Devon 3

South East

1. Brighton City (Q)
2. Reading Ultimate (Q)
3. Release (Q)
4. DED Open
5. DED Mixed
6. Guildford
7. Brighton Echo
8. Brighton Pier Pressure
9. Team Shark

UKU Regionals Preview - South East

Brighton Echo player Miles Tincknell finishes of the regionals previews with a hotly contested South East, who have 3 bids and will compete on Sunday.

With only three places up for grabs the SE region will be experiencing a heated game to go while the top two battle for the prestige of taking the region.

DED (Dog Eat Disc) were last years years victors of the region after finishing a comfortable 4th at Tour in 2012, however a stronger and more fleshed out squad from Brighton brought it back hard at Nationals, beating them comfortably 15-5 while DED where were lacking some key players. This year they have slipped 6 places in the tour rankings down to 10th place, but will still be fighting for that vital qualification if they are again to establish themselves as the biggest contenders in the regionals tournament. With them placing in a mixed squad into the region, it is clear that DED's focus is not just on the Open side of things. It will be interesting to see how they split their guys between the two teams, trying to find a balance can be difficult. DED will be looking to get comfortable with the mixed team but should be doing so without cutting too much depth from the DED open squad. If this team is to continue it's growth, it's important that it tries hard to find this balance and not sacrifice the few spots that are on offer, which will be highly contested from Reading and Brighton Echo.

DED at T2, but which men will go play mixed from this bunch? Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.

The Grapevine - 02/08

This weeks the Grapevine covers almost exclusively UK Ultimate news.

Coming back from summer holidays with a bang Ultimate Interviews and our friend Mark Earley talks to Elliot Trotter of SkyD magazine fame and co-founder of the new Huddle, High Release.

Understanding Ultimate discusses weights and the brain.

This weekend sees the 6 UK regions competing for those 16 spots at Nationals, go read our previews and make your mind up on who will make it!

World Games came and went in a flash, all results and stats can be found on the WFDF Ultiorganizer; a notable mention to Justin Foord with overall 5th spot (9 assists and 13 goals). Well played GB, we are all proud!

Finally another interesting read from Matthew "Smatt" Hodgson for Ultiworld on whether broadcasting ultimate requires a change in the sport or not.

Go grab those Nationals spots, tweets with #ukuregionals and #result will auto retweet to the @UKU_scores feed. DP @ tSG. 

UKU Regionals Preview - Greater London

James Burbidge tells us the London regionals story. Greater London has 5 bids for Nationals and will be held this Saturday.

With 5 qualifying spots, London is typically the richest Region in the country and for the past 3 years 4 teams from London have finished in the top 10 at Nationals.

With the uncontested top seed in the country ruling the roost in London, it’s unlikely that Clapham will lose a game at Regionals. Things get more interesting from then on. Fire are keen once again to get both squads to Nationals, and – going on results thus far this season – shouldn’t have much problem doing so. In fact the regional tournament structure should give Fire 1 the chance to prove to the heckling doubters their dominance over their second team – but you can bet that Fire 2 will be more fired up (excuse me) for that game than any other. Ka-Pow!, having come into a run of form (with the mooted return of Captain David Pichler), will also be out in force as all three teams battle for the higher positions that should give them better seeds and easier matches at Nationals.

Giacoma Maltman lays out for the D against his putative teammate Andy Mitchell (actually playing GBu23 here).
Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss via Blockstack.

Things get interesting when you look at the teams vying for the fifth spot – and depending on your taste, this could provide the most interesting story over the weekend. Teams in the hunt for that final spot will be perennial contenders (well, the last 3 years anyway) Tooting Tigers and Burro Electrico,* alongside a revived Flump team.

All three teams have had a topsy-turvy season so far, Flump rising unexpectedly quickly out of C-tour to the top section of B-tour, whilst (following Newtonian physics) Tooting have matched them with a fall from the middle of A-tour to the middle of B-tour. Burro have plodded along with solid results and unfavourable schedules that saw them finish ‘in A-tour’ at Tour 3. Burro has beaten Flump and Tooting this season, and Flump has beaten Tooting twice. To further complicate matters, both Tooting and Burro will be losing players to the mixed division and there are always late season injuries to be accounted for too. (One team who might be expected to make an experience in this area is ABH but they are focusing on mixed too.)

Chung Leung from Burro Electrico misses the goal at Tour 3. Photo courtesy of Louise Smith.

Further down the seeding will be some teams looking for a bit more pitch time together, the chance to play a big seed and perhaps even cause an upset for the 5^th spot. Whilst the teams entered haven’t yet been released, likely teams in this bracket include St Albans, Curve, and perhaps PAF. Iceni is not believed to have entered a team this year.

So there you have it – a Region that should provide some top-quality games between some of the best teams in the country, as well as a classic qualifying battle. Stay tuned for a schedule.

*Full disclosure! I captain this team. 

Five regions down, one to go. DP @ tSG. 

UKU Regionals Preview - the North

Dale Walker tells us how he thinks the Northern region will pan out this weekend. The North has 2 bids to Nationals and will be held this Saturday.

With the introduction of the Regionals/Nationals structure to UK Ultimate over the past few seasons, the UKU has taken a glance across the pond to find a structure that allows for a flagship event to be created whilst encouraging local teams to come out and see the best in their proximity battle for the privilege of representing their region at the National Championships.

Whilst thinking about how best to introduce the Northern region and to truly describe the dynamic we have, my mind glanced across the pond as well for inspiration. Whilst not the learned observer I have been in years gone by, I still keep an eye out on the blogosphere and ultimate outlets to see the latest trends - where the talent is heading, who are the top contenders in USAU etc. - and whilst thinking of a direct comparison my attention swung to 2011 NW Regionals.

David Sparks makes a bid for LeedsLeedsLeeds at T2. Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.

This particular tournament featured 4 of the best teams in the country at the time, battling for 2 spots to Nationals in a hugely under seeded region based on regional trends over the previous years. Revolver were at the peak of their powers - Kittredge, Cahill, Watson, Sherwood et al - and dominated the Regional and National scene. Sockeye had come off a very strong regular season, and were being heavily tipped to take the second berth to Nationals. Furious have been notoriously slow in the regular season and didn't look tooled up to keep Rhino down, nevermind knock Sockeye out. Rhino (with the addition of Seth Wiggins, Chasing Sarasota era) had come off their best ever year and threatened to break the monopoly the afore mentioned trio had enjoyed.

Revolver took the Region. Furious knocked Sockeye out. Furious had beaten the bookies, and despite not coming close all year had taken them down when it really mattered.

First off, I am not drawing a direct comparison in terms of ability between the North of England and the North West of North America. The comparison lies in a region with 2 berths and 4 teams fighting - whilst one spot might be sown up, the latter is completely up for grabs and is 2012 taught me anything it's that no-one is safe from the dark horse.

Chevron have been a powerhouse over the past few years in Northern ultimate. Their population is more diverse these days, featuring players from Manchester, Liverpool, London, Leicester, Leeds, Bristol, Exeter but the ethos remains the same - gritty, athletic ultimate with an explosive game based on dominant cutters. With some of the old guard moving on, Chevron have revamped in recent years and boast no fewer than 9 GB U23s in the Open team returning from Toronto. Lead by the Chevron veteran Matt Beavan and ably captained by 2010 U23 captains James Jackson, Mark Penny and Josh Coxon Kelly they will look to use Regionals as a tune up event having featured for the past 7 years in the top 4. Expect them to take the region comfortably.

Manchester Ultimate (the rebranded ManUp) have similarly rebooted their programme this year with an active focus on becoming the competitive arm of a hub of UK ultimate. Training weekly since October focusing on skills and fundamentals, Manchester were able to secure an 11th place finish Tour 3 having been promoted from B Tour earlier in the season. Losing in sudden death to KaPow and Ranelagh showed that this team can compete at the top and they are laying claim to be the dominant force in the North. Expect to see Adam Irving rip a few hucks to Nick "Bambi" Smith and Santiago Zuluaga make plays on both sides of the disc. Lead by captain Ewen Buckling bringing a humble intensity to the D line, with Sion Regan and Ben Brierley making explosive plays to keep the D line in with a shout against any team.

Having been part of the exodus from LLLeeds to Manchester between 2012 and 2013, this writer feared they may struggle to recover from the blow of losing 5 starters to Manchester. Leeds have done a superb job of starting from scratch and working with local talent to create a very strong team who have shown all year that youth can be a virtue. Bringing in talent from the local universities, Leeds managed to come up with Manchester at Tour 1 and have stayed in the top 16 so far. Rich Hims has been making plays all his career for LLL, and sets the tone for a young squad who don't lack in legs (although rumour has it he may be playing Mixed therefore ineligible for Regionals). Ben Bruin keeps the offence ticking over with solid throws and good speed, whilst Chris Rodd and Sam Rayner keep picking the legs up to threaten any D. Having lost to Manchester 3 times this year, they will be determined to make sure they stop the rot and give themselves a chance.

Vision have bled their best talent to their competitors in the past few seasons (Liam Kelly, Sion Regan and Paddy Hart to Chevron, Manchester and EMO respectively) but have always been focused on bringing through local junior talent and giving youth it's chance. They have always been a passionate team with a lot of fire, but have always struggled to retain depth to the squad and having lost the voice and wisdom of Mark Cooper and Mark Ansdell respectively this season they have relied on some newer faces to get the job done. Paddy Hart looks to control the offence with big throws and has willing runners in Pete Garnett and Dave Baxandall. Alex Walsh and Ben Smith Richards came through the GB Junior ranks together and possess pretty throws capable of hurting defences. Having secured a headturning sudden death victory over LLL in 2012 to secure a Nationals berth, don't put anything past them in 2013.

Filling out the field is Black Sheep 1 & 2 who have spent the season growing as a team and splitting relatively evenly in Tour events (featuring in the C Tour). They will be approaching the tournament with a view to learning and growing further, with a set of games against the region's top talent sure to boost them as a club in the future.

With the schedule just released, it appears the crunch game comes down to Manchester vs Leeds in the group stages. At this stage, it is unclear if both teams will elect to carry the result from the Group stage or potentially replay in the 2v3 (assuming Vision don't cause another upset) but with a place at Nationals on the line for the victor, expect a dogfight. With the results this season in Manchester's favour (15-10, 15-10 and 15-13 respectively all in crunch games) the smart money would be on Manchester joining Chevron in Southampton. 

I'm sure the smart money would have been on LLLeeds joining them last year.

What do you think? Tell us below, on FB, Tweet, email, ask away! DP @ tSG.