New Year's Ultimate Resolution 2006 Report by Shiv

Really really ridiculously early last Friday morning myself ciara gary and dave went to the airport where we also met some UCDers. Shimbo was drunk and falling sleep so people from UCD wrote clever things like "Cok" on his forehead.

To pass the time we started to practise our Newcastle-ese and talked about famous geordies. Perfect Dave came out with "Smoookey baycun monstar munch!" which became the catchphrase of the weekend. and also from Byker Grove--->PJ:"I cant see, you shot me in the eye man" Duncan: "shouldnta taken your mask off man" others included phrases from the geordie Big brother voice like "Day one of the tournamnent...etc etc"

We hoped that the pilot would have a geordie accent too when he came over the intercom, but he didnt. Very dissapointing really.

On arrival in Newcastle, we laughed some more at peoples accents (novelty lasted the whole weekend!) and headed to our hostel at around 8 o clock where Ciara discovered the fantastic idiots from Ryanair had robbed her camera. oh dear. We couldnt go to our room until 2 o clock so we spent the morning trudging around newcastle. buying one cup of tea each in a café and staying there for like 2 hours. eating rice-based brownies that dave had brought an endless supply of (apparently wheat makes him explode). Then we went to a retro shop where fun was had and people bought stuff for 80s night.

Went to the hostel slept for a while, until we were rudely awoken by the Scarampis and Eric -pick up binger (p p pick up a penguin).

Friday evening we headed to the pub to meet the other teams and get some food. We noticed things about newcastle like... almost eveything on the menu comes with peas. especially chips. and that Geordie people (men esp.) do not like jackets despite the fact that it is fffffreeezing. Lots of them have highlights, sunbed tanned skin and wear diamond earrings and copious amounts of hairgel. But if you wear a jacket you r a pansy.

Pub was great fun. Myself and Ciara played a embarrassingly terrible game of pool much to everyone elses amusement. We were handed out out player packs which each had our name on them except from frans which said "adrianos sister". She went to give out to the organisers and the next day her and ad were given two new sheets. Francesca Scarampi and "Francescas Brother"!!

Then we played drinking games such as German porn (similar to rock bar but with german porn noises) very funny- almost suprised we werent asked to leave cos we were pretty loud. "Ja", "Das ist gut" "oop die poope" etc

And then the "g-day bruce" game where one of the characters was Adriano and when u became Adriano in the game you had to say "i am really really gay" with sterotypical italian hand movments. Fran had to say it repeatedly resulting in lots of laughing from us and eventually her banging the table and shouting "IM GAY, OK???" then getting up and kicking the stool!

We also got chattin to some of the other teams while playing the “who wants to be a millionaire”machine. which also had a “Nuts” (as in the magazine) game- much to garys delight he got to look at women in their underwear without getting in trouble.

More games were played and the majority of the binge headed back to the hostel after the pub except for gary who went to a club with UCD. Only to return back about 30 mins later for shoes. ‘Comically’ kicking his runners off in the direction of my head...and then saying very politely “actually do you mind if i get those back, i might need them”

He arrived back about 2 hours later in what he belived to be a very quiet fashion (falling against the wardrobe and stamping accross the floor) before shouting “who the fuck spunked all over my sheets” he later explained that it was actually “feminine products on his sheets”, “smelly stuff” and then getting flustered while trying to explain that by feminine products he actually meant he spilled Conditioner!

Saturday morning we got up dark and early to catch the train to the sports complex. We were very impressed that there was a station called “Byker” and wondered if they have a grove. The sports complex was really nice.

I'm having trouble remember the exact order we played the games in but we won our first game which I think may have been against the pick up team (??) pete from bug and american andie were on it. Another match was against a family team and we won that too. They had a 12 yr old kid who was quite good and scored a point on Eric- cue slagging. We played a team made up of couples- which we afterwards discussed that even though they were quite a good team. the couple team thing is gay- to the max. Dave suggested the possibility of a “team awkward” of ex couples would be far more interesting! So anyhoo couples team beat us narrowly. With the game resulting in injuries to fran (from a great layout) and ciara (beacause her ankle is stupid). After that we played Shit-Hot and lost by one point ,we also lost our mo-jo, and one player as Eric damaged his knee

We had been joined at this stage by our 2nd pick up- Harry. We lost the rest of our games that day and decided to blame him!

Saturday evening we ate in a place where you got to learn italian in the toilets- then annoy Ad and fran with bad pronounciation, or in daves case just sticking –o on the end of words! “Smokio Bacono”

Party was a hen and stag themed pub crawl. First pub- the girls were given L-plates etc. One guy had antlers like an actual stag-impressive! Lauren from Curious Bacon amused us by getting us feel her dress to confirm it wasnt PVC! 3rd pub was fun, more drinking games, a UCDer was given a sticker that said Stripper decided to take it literally, Gary felt upstaged. After we headed on to a hipitty hop nightclub for some wigga dancing Later in a kebab place -I wanted to know what a shishk kebab was but Ciara wouldnt ask, resulting in me pestering the worker of the fine establishment asking Whats shish, whats shish. Messy. Thats all i recall of saturday really- anyone else....???

Sunday we got up very very early in the morning – Thanks fran ; ). Arrived at the sports complex an hour before the organisers n 2 hours before our game! We got to play with a mega phone, laugh some more at the geordies - “thats champion” and put shuttlecocks in Adrianos mouth while he slept to pass the time!

On the way there some crazy guy started to follow us saying ‘murrrr, murrrr’, then stepping on the back of daves shoes saying Flat Tyre, Flat Tyre!

Our losing streak from Saturday afternoon continued. We lost to the couples again. For our call we had to guess who was going out with who. We played the family team again and lost. Lost pretty miserably to Trigger Happy.Then we played the family team again. We got our mojo back (last game- typical!) and won, leaving us in 5th place. Shit-Hot and Couples battled it out in a close final with Shit-Hot eventually taking the prize.

Dave and Fran were our MVP and MSP of the weekend. what a couple!

Sunday was 70s/80s night. Dave was George michael in his scandalous hot pants. Harry looked like a young Morrissey, Ad was a policeman with a big ‘fro and moustache. Eric, Ciara and I were just generic eighties folk. Gary was an 80s go getter business man alá american psycho and Fran was kinda 70s – but actually just looked nice –the cheater:)

We got a really good meal in the pub and sat on the floor. Some people had v.good costumes including Lauren who was 80s Madonna circa Like A Virgin. Drinking games ensued and we had an unwanted guest who brought us great entertainment. This girl wasnt exactly the full shilling, but obviously decided we looked like fun. She sat directly opposite Harry and Ad, with a skirt on and her legs wide apart, Sharon stone eat your heart out. There was lots of comments about the “radhairc álainn” the lads must be getting and wondering if she was wearing “faoi- brístí”. We played 21 and someone eventually decided the rule for no 3 would be to cross your legs!

The 12 year old kid from Family team tried hitting on Lauren by licking a cake and saying “oh u like that dont you” naturally enough she walked away in disgust. Gary beamed proudly at little Gary junior.

We moved upstairs for lots of crazy 80s dancing and rang in the New Year. More drinking and dancing . Gary got intoa fight with a hand-drier, the hand drier won. Ciara danced with a 102 year old – Ad:“Why is Ciara dancing with a dirty old perv?” True to the binge we were the last people and had to be asked to leave and eventually we all got home safe and sound.

Next day we said goodbye to Ad, Fran, Dave, Eric and Harry at the train . Then we dossed about town, Ciara ran out of money, Gary thought the atm looked hungry and so gave it his card to eat. So the milky-bars were on me that day.I treated the kids to lunch, put them down for a nap, and then brought them to the cinema. Once the little tykes were all tuckered out they went off to bed.

Next day we got up –again really really ridculously early (thanks ryanair) for our flight home. We just about had enough dosh left for the train to the airport with change for a cup of tea.

We all got home in one piece it was a great weekend, great tournament and definitely the Best way Ive spent New Years in a long time. Thanks to everyone for a brilliant time :)

Games report by Adriano a.k.a Adriana a.k.a AIDS

I'll try to elaborate more into the games.

Ultimate Resolution was a 12 teams tournament, and we were seeded 2nd, begind Trigger Happy. At the last minute, probably due to some teams not being able to get enough girls, the rules were changed and instead of being a proper co-ed tournament it was now possible to play with just one woman on the line. Gay.

The schedule was: 3 initial pools of 4 teams each, then crossovers (1v4 and 2v3 from each pool), and then two big pools of 6 teams each and placement games to end everything with.

We were in a pool with Phat 'eds, Couples and Tobiasewicz.

First game against Phat 'eds. we get there just 10 minutes before tha game. We get changed in a rush get 5 players ready on the line. We find out that the pitches are incredibly small, so we struggle to get used to it and dont play at our best at all. Despite that we keep a confortable lead throughout the whole game and are never in doubt of winning. We relax and with 30 seconds to go they come back and are one point down. Tight D and we dont let them score.

Second game against Tobiasewicz. Interesting team. a mix between Pies (newcastle uni) Fish (lancaster uni) and the siblings of Wonkie and Luke who respectively play for those two universities. They had some good players and some kids who had never played a tournament before like a 13 year old boy (aka little Gary Junior) and two 15-16 year olf girls. We won again ery confortably a very very spirited game

Third game to see who would top the pool against Couples. Couples was a team made up of 4 couple from Pies. A really nice bunch of people, and the core of Pies first Mixed team, so we knew it was going to be tough. I said a nice bunch of people, but what a GAY idea for a team. Oh well, as Shiv said a "team awkward" would have definitely been a more fun idea A very close and fun game to play in. We traded points the whole time, expecially thanks to two of the luckiest points that I've ever seen scoring that kept us in the game at the very beginning. They managed to take a one point lead at the end and won on the buzzer. crap.

So second in our pool, and a tough crossover against the pickup team that starred Pete from BUG, Russ from EMO, American Andie and some other good players from around the country. This was one of our best games of the weekend. I think we won 16-8 or something like that. Eric was on fire, throwing break-assists all over the pitch (and here we found out eric's inability to throw normal open side passes. You make a great open side cut, he looks you off, and then you make a cut on the break side almost impossible to pass to and Eric makes you the most amazing break pass ever). So thanks to Eric's awesome handling we scored on the break at every single point with huge grabs in the endzone. They just didnt know how to stop us.

So we were in the top half of the tournament, and there we met again Couples and Tobiasewicz who had surprisingly won their crossover against Jedi and were looking much stronger than before.

First game of the second pool against Shit/Hot, and Harry finally turns up. Shit/Hot was another sort of pickup team of mates. There we found Luuuuuuundsey, Lauren, Jasper and other known faces. They were indeed Shit Hot, but so were we. But unfortunately on one of the first points Eric twists his knee quite badly and his forced off for the rest of the tournament. What a shame!! So we were down to 7 players again (4 guys, 3 girs). We traded during the rest of the game. Strong D and good O, and we didnt let them take any lead. 20 seconds to go, they're 1 point ahead and we score. Draw, we pull they catch the disc, appalling defence by us and they score. Loss again on the buzzer. Oh well...

We then played the 5th game of the day against Trigger Happy. Thet were good, but we were tired and slightly demoralized. They took a good lead at the beginning and won very comfortably. They even started taking the piss by the end. I hate when people do that, and when they threw the 20th disc away with another shit no look inverse hammer I gave the smiling bastard that had just thrown it the worst look ever. He apologised. We ended the game with Dave catching a great disc in between his legs while jumping in the endzone. Some glory at last.

6th and last game of the day against Couples. The losing streak continues. We play some awful ultimate, mainly due to how tired we were, which is summarized by Francesca in her post game speach by saying "sorry guys, but we were atrocious". Fair do. Fun game again though against a very spirited team that we ranked first in our spirit votes. I think his game ended something 10-6

anyway, going back to the games report...

after a big night out we all woke up at 7AM to head off to the sports centre. Our captain Francesca had apparently asked around on saturday and she was told that the first games were at 9AM. We believed her of course. big mistake. We showed up tired and hungover at the sports centre at 8.30am only to find out that our first game was not at 10AM, but at 10.40 instead. Lots of fingerpointing in francesca's direction, power naps, and we were ready for our first game.

Tobiasewicz again. Team T had improved a lot compared to saturday morning, and they gave us a much harder run. We played awfully again, and totally underestimated them. At the same time we were just not concentrating during the game, and perfect example was a wobbly hammer by gary to francesca and harry in the endzone who just stayed still and both looked at the disc gently landing on the floor in between the two, without even making the slightest effort to try to catch it.

Another loss then, and heads down we walked into our last pool game against the Brown. The Brown was the local open team, and organizers of the tournament. Spirited game again that we lost by giving them a few easy scores at the beginning and didnt really manage to get back. We didnt lose by much, but the motivation was also kind of lacking as the result of this game wouldnt have made much of a difference to our final placing in the pool. Amusing call where we all had to say "smokey bacon monster munch" in turn, and we played the german pornstars game that lasted for ages and was eventually won by the american girl playing for the brown.

So we were last in our pool, and had to play Tobiasewicz again for the placement game. We put our heads back together and decided it was time to end the tournament with a victory. So to the sound of ""FUCK SEAMUS!!" we all stepped on the pitch ready for revenge. We again started sloppily and played at their level without concentrating much on D, and throwing stupid discs away on O. With 15 minutes to go (29 minutes game), one of the girls from the other team in a bid to catch the disc twists her knee and collapses on the floor in agony as if she had just been shot. So we drag her off the pitch (litterally) and carry on with the game. We come back, play much more relaxed and easily win the game with a couple of points margin. As a call we played a nursery song that the family Tobiasewicz must have been singing when they were kids. Then we had to guess which ones out of their team were related together and we guessed all 4 of them.

So, end of the tournament and we finished 5th. Some big ups and downs, but overall I think we all played fairly well. It was a fun indoor tournament afterall, and we were all there to spend New Years in a new fun way, and we all gave the games much less importance than at other tournaments. This showed in the fact that hardly anyone of us layed out all weekend (unusual for a binge team), and apart from a couple of light ones, no one got injured stupidly (well, Eric's injury infortunately was unavoidable and not his fault). So well done to everyone! Really looking forward to seeing you and playing with all of you again.

and of course... Happy New Year!!!!