Chuck Another Brim on the Barbie

Looking back - Frisbee

I’m going to say this upfront. For the majority of people reading this (I’m assuming that only my family and maybe like 2 others read this), this post is likely to be the least interesting for you whilst being the most interesting for me to write. There will be some pictures in this one too though so if you don’t even bother reading, at least one of the pictures will be slightly interesting (one of them even has a picture of me with other people in it).

I’m sure you’re all well aware of my (slight) obsession with ultimate frisbee by now. I started playing in my second year at Swansea Uni after being introduced by Stef. I’ve played frisbee in 3 continents now (Europe, Asia and Australasia) and my love for all things flying disk (except Whammos, bleugh) is only increasing. Also, frisbee is very social sport so this will be a post where I actually talk about me interacting with other people. I know! Real people!

Anyway…

Moving to a new place sucks for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that you leave all of your friends behind and you’re lucky if you know two people in the city that you’re moving to. This was always something that worried me about moving because to be honest, no one is every going to put me in the “people person” category. At best I’m nonchalant and at worst I’m miserable to be around. These are all things that I am aware of and was hoping to change when coming to Australia otherwise I would be stuck with 0 people to talk to.

I’d say about 50% of the people that I am friends with on Facebook play ultimate. Most of these people are from the UK (although Australia is putting in a good effort to be my friend :) ). The non-frisbee people are from a few other categories such as; people from school or uni I don’t really talk to (majority), people from school or uni I occasionally talk to (next largest group) and people from school or uni that I regularly talk to (small group). Playing the numbers game, it seems like I will be better off with frisbee people!

A quick google put me onto the Ultimate Victoria page and with that I discovered social league. “Social league” is a lot more of the first word that it is of the second. It’s more of a “Social come and learn how to play ultimate or have a throw around and meet some people while you’re at it”. This works perfectly for me. Naturally social league is in Albert Park.

In hindsight, my first night at social league was very weird. I played terrible but for most people it was only their second week in playing so it didn’t show too much. Despite playing terrible, the guy who runs Social (Seb, or Sebbo if you’re an Aussie) invited me down to a new men’s league that was starting with his club. I was more than happy to accept and was very excited to play some ultimate that was a bit more competitive.

First, there was more social league. I love social league, it’s where I have met a lot of the people that I know in Melbourne today. The strange thing is that while there are a few Aussies, the split at social is about 50/50 between Australians and non-Australians. It has been amazing fun to meet loads of new people, go to the pub afterwards and get running around again.

I’d barely done any exercise in the past 3 or 4 months and it showed in my first few weeks at social! I played a few points and then I would be lying on the floor fighting for breath. I blamed the heat at the time but I was just so unfit!

There was one week of social league that ended up being cancelled. Unfortunately for me, I was already at the park because I had the afternoon off. I was just lying down, reading on my iPad and waiting for people to turn up. Then this showed up out of nowhere:

The weird part was that this all came over in around 2 minutes. There was a gust of wind that smelled like sea air and within 5 minutes I was soaked! Three other guys showed up and being as we were already drenched, we had a throw around for an hour anyway. Good practice for throwing in the win and rain!

I played social league every week (that it wasn’t cancelled) up until the end of the season (just before Christmas) and will be going back for the next season too (just after Christmas). I probably won’t join in with the training so much (it’s aimed at true beginners, rather than people who just suck like me) but I’ll probably end up doing throwing practice with Trent. Trent has fast become one of my best friends in Australia and is a good Aussie bloke (that’s Australian for guy). 

Moving on to the men’s league. I was happy to get involved in some more competitive ultimate but wasn’t quite ready for the shock of playing with these guys! The club, Heads of State Ultimate, are a high level club in Australia. A lot of the guys play internationally for the Australian team and the club has played the world club championships at least once.

Men’s league was really tough for me! Everyone else there was so much fitter and it showed. Despite that, I was loving it and felt like I was getting fitter every week and learning so much from the wealth of experience at the club.

One of the guys at the club who knew that I was new to Melbourne asked me if I was playing in the Monday night league. Looking back, he already knew the answer. He seems to know everyone on the Melbourne frisbee scene already and would have seen me before. He invited me to play league with hit team, The Other Team. Monday night league is split into 2 divisions, div 2 and div 3. Div 1 no longer exists but has been replaced by MAD League. Mixed Advanced Draft I think. Doesn’t matter, we were playing in div 3. This also doesn’t matter because most people play both divisions anyway.

Monday night league is great fun and again I’ve met loads of really nice people and have spent a bit of time at the pub with the rest of the team. Monday night league is obviously played at Albert Park (can you see the theme here?) but is played on synthetic pitches instead of grass:

I was really surprised at just how comfortable it is to run on in boots. Playing with TOTs was great fun and again, I learned a lot and met some awesome people. I’ll be back when the season starts after Christmas!

Back to HoS! As men’s league came to a close (our team came last, even with the amazing group of players we had), the club had organised a training camp in nearby Ballarat. Ballarat is about an hour and a half out of Melbourne and a lot of the guys who now play for HoS are originally from Ballarat. I was very much up for this!

I loved the whole weekend. Firstly, it was the first time that I got to play ultimate in a stadium:

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t Old Trafford or anything even approaching that standard but it was amazing to be playing on a well maintained pitch and to have all the facilities like our own changing room, showers and a meeting area.

The plan for the weekend was this:

• Warm up & defensive drills 
• Lunch
• Offensive drills & game
• Showers & club meeting
• Dinner and some drinks at a local pub
• Mini-golf
• Lunch
• Offence vs. Defence game

I really enjoyed the drills, HoS play in a completely different way to what I’m used to so I have to get out of all my bad habits and learn to play like them. The club meeting was really interesting; as a club we set the goals for the season and talked a bit about being a team and all the other stuff that you see in films about American Football teams.

The drinks? I got wasted. I thought that we were just going to have a few quiet ones but jugs of beer were really cheap and we just kept chucking them back! The short story is that I got to bed at 4am and already felt like death!

Day 2! Mini-golf. I was still entirely smashed at this point and was using the club to hold me up most of the way around. The course was really cool though; it was an indoor course themed like medieval Britain. Good fun all ‘round. Needless to say, I didn’t win. We grabbed some lunch in town and then headed back to the stadium. We were meant to be playing a game but I felt like I was about to vomit at any moment. We didn’t have the numbers, I had to play. O vs. D and I was on the O team. In the state I was in, running seemed almost impossible but after a few points, I’d shaken out the cobwebs and actually put a bit of effort in. Our team lost. Badly.

After the game, we were all chatting while packing up and one of the guys summed up the weekend perfectly for me:

The best thing about joining a sports team is that as soon as you join, you get 20 new mates

This is pretty much how it has felt with all of the frisbee that I have done since moving out here. Every group or team that I play with just means that I meet more nice people and make more friends. And here I was worrying that I was going to be a loner!

I know this post is monstrously long but I couldn’t write a post about frisbee and not mention the Melbourne Hat. A hat tournament is a tournament where everyone enters as players rather than a team. Upon registering (well in advance of the actual weekend) you rank yourself and the teams are picked to try and make as even teams as possible.

There is a hat tournament that I’ve been to 3 times in the UK, DUFFA. DUFFA has been my favourite tournament every year for the last 3 years. You play with a bunch of new people, play in ways that you have never played before and generally have the most fun while playing frisbee. The Melbourne Hat was all this and more. It was very similar in format and style to the DUFFA tournament but was so well run and everything was thought of. To finish this huge post, here is a picture of me with my Melbourne Hat team, Gumbys: