Club Champs 2013

It’s been a long time since I dusted off the old blogging hat and placed it firmly atop my head, much like the flat peaked caps in which my trendy consequences blogging mates have been styling in and around Cardiff’s elite high society, and in that time I have learned very little and done even less with myself.  

One of the few things I have done is that I have read blogs; from both TTC, STC and Procrastinate, and much like the theme of many of these blogs, I plan to continuously reference the ineptitude of the simpleton that is Jonny King.

And so our story begins on a quiet Friday night in Roath park….  We were discussing how, when and why we are going to Taf Bargoed for another polo tournament, because we all know that polo is terrible to play and even worse to watch.  The main topic of conversation was that Blondie had told everyone to meet at the ungodly hour of 8am, even though the teams didn’t kick off until much later.  Rob and I made the quick and easy decision to drive ourselves and to leave Cardiff at 7.45am aiming to arrive at around 8.15am, because we’re rebels and don’t play by anybody’s rules, not even our own.  Jonny made the decision to travel up with Tim and Max, who were leaving slightly earlier at 7am.  Immediately the discussion turned to everybody joking and laughing that he would never be organised and punctual enough to get to Tim’s by that time, but the night moved on.  We slack-lined and even attracted some local wildlife to our spot.  The type of wildlife that throws those little snaps on the floor which cause little bangs… or so Rob thought.

So Saturday morning rolls around and Rob knocks on my door, we get the car loaded up and start the journey up to Taf Bargoed.  We get about half way before we come across a little Ford KA on the road with a polo boat on top.  We speculated about who it could be and where they could have come from.  Knowing Jonny had a gay little Ford KA, but not knowing the reg or whether he had a boat bag we back and forth’ed for a while about whether or not it could be him…  and I guess you already know where this is going, it was him.  We found this out when he pulled into the parking area and we saw his dumb looking smirk through the window.  Later when we were giving him a bit of stick about it, he got a tad angry because he thought no one could understand that even though he hadn’t left enough time to make it to Tim’s, he had been clever enough and had the foresight to drive himself… but what he didn’t understand was that we were giving him stick for the fact that he is so inept that he had planned the wrong time to wake up and had to drive himself.  Just another Jonny moment.

Here he is.

Anyway, this is a polo blog with hints of a dumb Jonny blog, not a full on dumb Jonny blog (that’s coming later… Jonny The Consequences perhaps), and so we need to talk about that, however briefly it happens to be.  Cardiff had 3 teams in the tournament this year, the A’s and B’s in the main competition, and the C’s (Juniors) in the development league.  I was playing with the B team as I am returning from injury with Rob off of STC, Little Rob, Little Rob’s Dad Hugh, Zoe, Steve & Phil Darlington.  The A’s were Max, Jonny, Dylan, Dave, Harry and Matt.

The A’s had a pretty solid group with Viking A, Meridian B, FOA A and Meridian X, whilst the B’s had a slightly less challenging group with Aberfan A, Meridian E, FOA B and Welsh Warriors.

The A team did as expected, losing against Viking A, Meridian B and FOA A, but they did have a victory against Meridian X who were the whipping boys of their group.  This put them 4th (out of 5) in their group at the end of day 1.

The A-team and Harry going for the sprint.

Harry losing the sprint.

In the B team we started with Aberfan A (a national div 1 team) and we held them to a solid 12-0.  To be honest it was a kind result, if they had wanted to humiliate us I’m sure they could have easily got to 20, but they held back, toying with us like a toddler pulling the legs off a daddy long-legs.  I think we were all a bit disappointed not to get on the scoreboard, but they were too strong in defense (and attack and all over the pitch).  Next up we were playing the Welsh Warriors, a team made up mostly of older boys, but with nice boats (Dave Brown off of DB boats was in their team).  We should have beaten them, but we basically fell apart and ended up losing 4-1.  It was a terrible result and one we would later come to rue.  In our third game we were up against FOA B, a team mostly made up of skinny emo-looking teens, so we decided to use our superior strength (weight) to overpower them.  This worked very well in the first half and we built up a 3-0 lead, but in the 2nd half they changed their team and kept their strongest players on the pitch, and at the end of the game we only won 5-4.  Our final group game was against Meridian E, and they were also made up mostly of teens, but slightly older, thicker, slicker teens who rang rings around us.  We lost 8-1.

At least we styled our loses!

Following all our group games we had assumed that we had finished 4th, and were looking forward to a grudge match with the A’s the following day, but we found out that FOA B had scraped a win against Welsh Warriors meaning the bottom 3 teams had lost 3, won 1, which meant it was down to goal difference.  Our awful displays against Meridian and Aberfan meant we came 5th.  As the A’s came 4th, they were in the 9th-16th place playoffs, and we were in the 17th – 20th place playoffs.  No grudge match

I’ve got no idea how the C team did, they seemed to be playing well and having fun.

C-team looking sharp.

The rest of the day was broken up with sun bathing our marvellous bodies, Jonny and Zoe practicing hi-5's, and with numerous trips to the burger-bar; Aberfan’s policy not to charge too much for bacon and burgers is good for the wallet but not for the 6-pack.  Rob was back and forth like fat man to a buffet.

Practicing their hi-5's.

On the Saturday night we went to the park again to rest after the long day, and for a bunch of slackers we even had the ability to come up with a plan to order Chinese food and eat it in the park before heading off to the pub.  The plan was simple, much like Jonny, only this plan would work; Zoe would go to Robs house to get forks (and empty out), and Jonny would go on his bike to collect the food.  Everyone sorted out the money they owed and Jonny counted the money and confirmed that he had enough.  Zoe even gave him a pound extra just in case.  They headed off.  A minute later Fran pipes up wondering why Jonny had already left as he hadn’t given any money to anyone yet.  He must have been daydreaming about Zoe’s housemate because it was obvious that everyone was getting money sorted and Jonny was on his way. 

However, this isn’t a Fran bashing blog, it’s a polo blog with hints of a dumb Jonny blog (which we are now going to focus on).  A wise man once tried to count to infinity, and an even wiser one said it was impossible.  Jonny failed to count to 45.  So off Fran went on his bike to heroically catch Jonny up to give him the extra £10 to pay for the food.  Half-way to the Chinese, Jonny cycled past Fran shouting he was a tenner short.  It obviously hadn’t occurred to Jonny that Fran was there for that reason as opposed to going on a leisurely bike ride.  Jonny reminds me of a blind man in a dark room looking for a black hat that isn't there.  In the end the food turned up and or carbo-loading started for the following day.

The rest of the evening was fairly pleasant and uneventful, Dave Morgan made an appearance and we went to the Albany pub for a few drinks.

Sunday morning was much like Saturday morning, except with a hangover.  And sun burn (for Rob).

As we were only playing for 17th – 20th places we were demoted to the development pitch, which was shallow and full of pond-weed.  Every time anyone went over they came up looking like a swamp-thing bukake movie.  We were due to play all the other loser teams; Aberfan B, Meridian X and an Avon team, possibly Avon Y.

B-team greatness.

Before we even kicked off against Aberfan B we knew we didn’t deserve to be in this group as they asked us not to push over some of their players, and we must have been feeling generous as we abided by the rule, well… all except Little Rob who, like an enraged bull who has just caught a matador, saw a red mist and descended on one of the poor Aberfan kids.  We ended up winning convincingly 5-1.  After the game we found out that Little Rob pushing over the lad had scared one of the other kids so badly that they refused to play any more games and would likely never get in a boat again.  We followed this game up with another convincing win over Meridian X 8-1.  At this point we got lethargic and depressed about how we should have been doing better and drew against Avon.  17th place overall.  Embarrassing.