London Calling - Open Preview

The club season is upon us! James Burbidge takes a look at the competition heading to the open division this weekend.

Returning to St Albans, Tour 1, this year's London Calling sees over 70 teams entered into the open division with 10 coming from overseas.

At the top of the pack, four teams will hope to prove themselves the best of the best in Europe: Clapham, Chevron Action Flash, Bad Skid and Flying Angels Bern. London Calling will doubtless provide top competition for these teams as they prepare for the big one: the World Club Championships in August.

Reigning National and European champions Clapham have split their team into two like last year (an O-line and a D-line), and are using the competition as the final part of a long and heated selection process. Captain Marc 'Britney' Guilbert returns to lead a club firmly focused on a peak in Lecco and will be hoping that his teams can meet in the final this year, rather than the semi. With no major player movement out, and more top recruits coming in – notably Ollie Gordon from Chevron, Matt Parslow and James Baron from Fire – they may find that the toughest competition is also the most familiar.

Photo courtesy of Graham Bailey.

Herd Mauled by Bears in Sunny Cardiff - Mixed Tour 1 Report

Matt Dathan reports on Mixed Tour 1 in sun-soaked Cardiff

Bear Cavalry took Thundering Herd to the slaughter to draw first blood in this season’s mixed tour. 

On yet another sunny day on the fields of Cardiff, Herd went into the final still milking their fine 13-10 semi-final victory over Bristol, but their performance was less than legendairy. It all looked to be going well for the Londoners in the first half as they kept up with the Bears, trailing by just one point at half.

Theo Tizard (Bear Cavalry) gets high over the Herd.

Former Bears handler Cian Ó Móráin was a constant thorn in their side and was opening up too many breaks for their liking. But tactics maestro Dave Tyler put his thinking hat on at half time and pulled out a masterstroke to contain the Irish playmaker, stifling his leftie throws.

Scottish Uni Open Indoor Regionals

Rory Curran sizes up the competition at this weekend's tournament which doubles as University Scottish National Indoor Championships and University Regional Qualifiers

Following Scotland’s impressive showing across all four University Nationals last year, they have now been awarded a fourth Division 1 spot, maintaining three for Division 2. Last year's British national champions Dundee University look to start the tournament as favourites. Despite losing Graeme McDowell and Jocelyn Trottet, Dundee have been a club growing for many years now under Graeme’s watchful eye and he has left them in a very strong state. The team placed seventh at Outdoors, losing their quarter final match to eventual finalists Edinburgh.  

The Scottish region, if you weren't sure. Image courtesy of UKU.

Glasgow Ultimate had a very successful club season, and this high level ultimate appears to have filtered into the two Glasgow based teams - Strathclyde and Glasgow University. My predictions see these two teams taking the next two spots and pushing Dundee the hardest, and possibly causing an upset.

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 Regionals Preview - Scotland

Ben Heywood of Understanding Ultimate fame and Glasgow Ultimate player tells us how he thinks Scottish regionals will go down. Scotland has 1 bid to Nationals and will be held this Sunday.

A real match?

For the first time ever, Scottish Regionals might just see a contest.

In the past, everyone has always known that Fusion would qualify, and the whole thing has just been a chance to get a few games of Ultimate. Fusion would enter two teams, split evenly so that they'd get at least one reasonable game when they played each other.

Last year, Abstract came very close to an upset against one of the Fusion teams, but no-one had any serious expectations of beating both of them and taking the Nationals spot. This year, it all looks very different.

Glasgow Ultimate have emerged as an A Tour squad, winning promotion from an incredibly competitive B Tour 1 and (just) holding on for the rest of the season despite never quite having the full squad out there. They even gave me my first taste of A tour in 9 years, which shows how short they must have been...

Glasgow at T2 in Nottingham. Photo courtesy of David Sparks.

And Fusion? Well, I don't think they can complain if I say they've had a 'mare. A little unlucky with the opponents they drew at Tour 1, they just barely avoided relegation to the C tour; and then, doubtless on the back of that result, failed to get a team together for the rest of the season. They've had a couple of guys away with U23s, and a lot of old hands have retired or focussed on Mixed with Black Eagles.

But Fusion are back... A team has emerged for regionals, and doubtless they want some revenge. It'll be a very interesting match up. Fusion has no obvious weaknesses - they're all young and quick, and they can all throw. But they perhaps lack the experienced general, the one truly top-class player that will bring them together. When they disagree, who has the authority to really take charge?

Whereas Glasgow probably have the top 3 or 4 players in the tournament, better than anything Fusion have on the preliminary roster I've seen, and a good crowd of skilled and drilled athletes to back them up - but also a few who wouldn't have matched Fusion on an athletic level until Phil Webb's weekly boot camp. It'll be fun finding out how much that fitness has paid off....

I suspect the game will be decided on the Glasgow leadership's superior tactical experience - they'll know how to use which players in which situations, whereas Fusion's even roster will mean everyone is trying to win the game themselves rather than sometimes defer to a stronger team-mate. I predict Glasgow by 4. But I suspect Fusion may have something to say about that...

Or maybe there'll be a shock? Sneeeky's have impressed me this season with some solid results and some very solid performances, though they'll probably lack firepower against the top 2 teams' strongest lines. And there's talk of Black Eagles entering - which frankly means anything at all could happen. Some of their guys are top class - the kind of players who used to see Fusion into the A Tour top 4 - and their best girls (if they bring some?) can compete against anybody. Who knows? Maybe even Abstract will get a team together for the first time this year.

But here's my prediction (even though I don't yet know which of these teams will turn up!):
1 Glasgow 1
2 Fusion
3 Black Eagles
4 Sneeeky's
5 Glasgow 2

Read more of Ben's work on Understanding Ultimate! DP @ tSG.