busa polo results

[Unregistered]

does anyone know who won the ladies polo at busa yesterday? we went home before the final....

[Unregistered]

I heard that leeds won the ladies and nottingham the mens

[Norf]

Leeds beat Southampton in the ladies final although i can't remember the score. Warwick were third.

Nottingham beat Durham in the Open final, with Leeds beating Bath in the 3rd/4th playoff.

Good weekend.... and the standard of uni polo seems to be continually improving! who were you guys playing with?

Cheers

Rob

ULU #13

[UMISTAlex]

congratulations to the medalists. I played for UMIST and although we came joint 21st (i think) we did achieve all our aims - we scored 2 goals won a game and din't finish last.

Rob did you score any of the 7 goals we conceeded to you?

Alex

UMIST #2

[subzero]

well done to everyone who played and well done to you Alex you weren't as good as the best but you pulled thrugh and had a good laugh doing it.
subzero

[Norf]

UMISTAlex,

Yup, think i got a couple of them :ninja: ! We were trying (and failing!) to chase down Leeds on Goal difference - sorry!

Subzero is spot on - BUSA's is a good event to play because everyone who is there is playing to enjoy it, and the party is just as important as the polo! :cheers:

You guys seemed to improve a lot as the weekend went on as well - roll on next year! Are you gonna be back?

subzero - who were you there with?

Rob

[Norf]

seem to remember UMIST's goalie being on fire as well... got horrible memories of almost all my shots coming straight back at me!!

[artful_bodger]

Hi All!

I'm from Loughborough Uni (one of the guys who ended up helped Tafflet run the event) and this coming Tuesday we are having our annual "debrief".

Basically we try and figure out what (if anything) went wrong, and how we could improve the event for next year, as it takes nearly a year of organising to get the thing off the ground.

So out of you lot who went, is there anything you reckon we did wrong, or would like to see improved?

Hope you can help!

Dave Jones

Vice Chair,
Loughborough University Canoe Club

[Polo_Dan]

Hi, I played for Bristol last weekend, coincidently in the same group as ULU, UMIST and Leeds. We didn’t exactly shine on the pitch but you might have noticed us in the beer tent (Yes, that was us in the Hawaiian shirts) Leeds annihilated us but if I remember rightly we gave ULU a close game.

As to the tournament I think the organisers do a fantastic (and hard) job, thank you all. It would be good to get more games in (we played 4), but I realise this isn’t easy. Other than that great weekend all round. :cool:

Dan

[artful_bodger]

I remember those shirts!!!!

Glad you enjoyed yourselves, I know I did!

As to the games, will pass the comments on, one of the things will will be doing next year is starting some of the games Friday night (trouble being every year we get more entries, and sadly the two days don't stretch to accomodate) the other option is trying to get it to fall on the first May bank holiday (nationals being the second bank holiday), giving us three days, and more importantly for loughborough an extra oppertunity to show ourselves up crawling around fields at 4am in the morning totally ratted.

We didn't do too badly this year, only two of our lot were so intoxicated that a tent zip was above their skill level.

And a huge well done to Loughborough X for anhialating teh competition in the Div 1's!

Dave

[Norf]

Firstly, well done to all the organising crew - a great weekend by all accounts. :cheers:

There are a couple of things that i (and some of the ULU folk) think would be improvements for next year and help to avoid some of the 'scorekeeping issues' that occured this year.

1) Require that scoresheets be signed by a representative of each team (ideally the captain, or maybe whoever is going to be reffing the next game) at the end of a match.

This would avoid a lot of the problems our ladies encountered and allow any discrepancies to be sorted out while the referees and relevant scorekeeper folk were still present. If flagged up in the briefing it shouldn't slow things down at all either.

2) Have scoreboards for each pitch so that spectators and neutrals can see how the game is progressing and who to root for.

They needn't be fancy, just a simple flipchart type thing would do the the job.

The main reason for these changes is to make the tournament more credible and ensure that the correct results are recorded. Although its organised as a 'fun' tournament where the beer is as important as the polo, a lot of unions make budgeting decisions based on BUSA results.

Will see if i can think of anything else! Games friday afternoon/evening could be a good way to get the tournament to run on time and get more games in for everyone.

My tuppence worth!

Cheers

Rob

[subzero]

i was a spectator, norf, i wasn't asked by anyone to play for them :waah: but i'm hopeful for next year.
Does anyone want a goalie?

[Shaq]

Well done to the Loughborough canoe polo club and Chris (Taff) for the oganisation of such a smooth running and enjoyable as ever weekend.

It was great fun, esp when that guy with long hair started Mexican waves in the crowd for the final etc...

:headbang:

[BUSA Organiser]

Hi All,
As my user name suggest Im the guy behind this years BUSA Tournament and as Dave Jones said earlier up here we are looking for feedback on the event.
Ive read the earlier comments and have taken them on board, thanks Robin for your e-mail as well.
Here are just a few ideas Id like to put into the melting pot and see what you think:-

Move the event next year to the 23-25th April with matches for the Open A & Ladies teams on the Friday afternoon. This should hopefully get the 1st round group stages out of the way and allow more space during the weekend for more teams & games.

I think the idea of signing the score sheet could be made to work so be prepared to see that next year.

What do people feel about the way the rules were inforced this year especially when it came to boats, paddling etc. Would you like to see the level of rule appliance be increase, decreased or left as is?

Refereeing as ever there is problems with inexperienced refs doing games at a level above their own, however, this is all part of people learning. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how this could be improved, we already offer the Div 1 B Team teams as a useful source of refs although I get the impression that some teams get over used and others dont.

I know this is a bit of a mamouth post but any feedback on the above points or anything else about the weekend incl the beer & food prices/ quality. Would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Chris aka Taff aka Tafflet!

[UMISTAlex]

we'd have liked more games, i think we had 5 as did the manchester men with their ladies having 4 altough they only played 3 (long story)
The score boards are a good idea if nothing else they would allow you to see who's playing so you can work out when you're next on
On the reffing it was inconsistent to say the least but i'm not going to complain too much as i ended up reffing a couple of matches. the only thing i would say is that we didnt realise till saturday morning that we were supposed to ref at all. some advanced warning would've been nice.

[UMISTAlex]

As there's obviously a some people who read this who saw our team play at the weekend any criticism (constructive or otherwise) would be greatly appreciated

cheers

Alex

[Norf]

Good to see you on here Chris/Taff/Tafflet! :welcome:

Date change: Shouldn't be a problem (when's easter?) although i think that's the weekend of the Tooting Bec tournament in London. May even help re. Exams. Will need to be confirmed as early as possible.

Friday start: Again, should be ok as long as notified enough in advance. Could present problems with Postgrads, although most of us had to take the day off this year anyway!

Scrutineering: certainly important to have it, and didn't encounter any desperately illegal kit while i was playing. The inspections were pretty lax tho - maybe worth having a quick training session with people before (chipped paddle edges especially seemed to go unnoticed). Ideally all kit should be legal and there isn't really any excuse for it not being.

Refereeing: Any way to raise the standard would be good - maybe a fixed rota of known refs for the crossovers onwards? Could be difficult to organise? Maybe there's a way to ensure that at least one of the two refs in each game is up to scratch, the other one can then learn from reffing opposite someone experienced?

A monster reply to a monster post!

Another idea - some sort of 'All star game' for the Open (and ladies?) leagues. Maybe have the teams that qualify for the crossovers each nominate a player then play 'top half' vs 'bottom half' last thing on saturday as a prelude to the Beer? Would get different teams to know one another a bit better...

sorry its so long...

Rob

Subzero - who do you play for normally? there are usually spaces in the B-team leagues, its a long way off, but give me a shout next year!!

[keith]

I generally enjoyed the tournament and wasn't going to complain, but seing as you asked -

Basically we try and figure out what (if anything) went wrong, and how we could improve the event for next year, as it takes nearly a year of organising to get the thing off the ground.

I played for Oxford A and on the sunday morning we had a match scheduled for 11:40 AM on the sunday morning.

Our B team (also cleverly called "Oxford") was also scheduled to play at 11:40 AM on the sunday morning, on the adjacent pitch.

We played the A match first, as its pitch was clear first and because we had agreed with the B teams opposition to delay their match.

As soon as it finished the B team moved onto their pitch to be told they had forfeited.

This resulted in the B-team having zero matches on the Sunday.

I'd make two suggestions -

That the organisers check that teams from one uni are not playing concurrently. (It only requires reading through the schedule after they've produced it.)

That they either guarantee a specific number of matches, or warn teams before entering that they may not get to play much.

Otherwise thanks for the tournament.

[subzero]

i normally play for my school, i'd love a chance even if it's just in a B-Team, i will send you my e-mail address. when would you like me to email you about?

[BUSA Organiser]

Hi,
A lot of people have suggested some kind of all star game as the last game on the Saturday night.
This is certainly something Id like to look into for next year but it all does rely upon being able to shift the event to a Friday afternoon start otherwise as you might of noticed there is not the pitch capacity unless we have a 8 am start on bout days which I think would proove tough.

In response to Oxfords comments, as I said at the time, with 69 teams & 175 games running over the course of the weekend on 4 pitches it nigh on impossible for us to ensure that there are no clashes with the same uni scheduled to play on 2 pitches at once, we try our best but unfortunately some slip through the net. in general these are picked up by either the teams or some of the assistants however in this case yours completely slipped through.

Just a note for all teams for next year on this if you have a clash especially if its caused by pitches running late please find 1 of the organisers and tell them & we will make the neccesary arrangements for you.

Thank you for all the comments so far, please keep them coming.
Chris

[ivette]

This was my first BUSA tournament.

I really like the idea of a student tournement, in the Netherlands there are not enough students playing polo.

Thanks for organising.

The only thing I came across was two different time sheets on a sunday morning.
Sunday morning a new timesheet was put up near the white tent, but the timesheets at the pitches were still the old ones. This was a little confusing.

cheers ivette

[Bee]

In a recent poll on 'The future structure of The World Championships', elsewhere in these forum pages. Motormouth1729 correctly stated: -
"If it is the case that only one quality pitch can be provided for the Worlds then we are a shambles! Even the 'Uni. Champs' can provide 4 pitches with enough room for all spectators... and that's just a bunch of students organising the event!"

Well Chris (Taff) all I can say to you and your Loughborough 'bunch of students' is you did a bloody fine job!
A good humoured and well-organised event with built in flexibility when required.
From the very existence of scrutinering! through the Mexican wave to Vicky's 'off the wall notes' on her score sheets, made it an impressive and very enjoyable weekend, thank you.

My only criticism of the proceeding had nothing to do with the organisers.
It is an old chestnut that 'dogs' the leagues as well, Referees!
I was dismayed to learn that a well experienced and qualified, good mate of mine was soundly criticised by 'The other referee' for, well basically, applying the rules!
Now this other 'ref' may or may not be qualified but clearly has only scant knowledge/ understanding of the rules, I suppose he was at least refereeing, but the point is, should he have been?

Clyde (Paul Hammond) recently resigned BCU Chief Ref. was on hand for the weekend to assess people who had passed their written paper on their way to be a qualified referee.
He had little trade I'm disappointed to report, so people, make BUSA run even better next year, get onto your polo captain and get yourselves onto a referee's course, if nothing else you will learn what all those funny arm waving antics are all about :)
Bee.

[Cat]

Re: reffing: Well I got to ref my first game ever, so that was cool, but it came up because the guy who was meant to be reffing was still getting off the water (the way it was scheduled was that the game directly after you played you were responsible for reffing, which didn't give much time to organise yourself).

Re:running late: It would have been fine if all the games had been running as late as each other, but as it was there were frantic change-overs of kit and boats on several occasions, simply because the expertly planned match list was not being adhered to, which is understandable, but could have been rectified. The 3 minute late rule is quite a harsh one to impose when clubs only have one set of kit for two or three teams and the fact that they are running late is out of their hands - but I do see the vicious circle I'm getting into here!

Re: supply of balls - how could there possibly have been so much trouble to find a decent size 5 ball? But there was!

Sorry to deluge you with all this - I had a brilliant weekend, the polo was fun, the party was rocking (so was the guy from Loughborough with the long hair!) and i can't wait til next year. Fab job done by the organisers and thanks again!

[artful_bodger]

Hi Cat,

Thanks for the comments, in response I would just like to say:

1. Running late - I would hope that your team wiould be willing to help with you getting off the water and your kit, I know my lot were with me. The problem is if you don't ref teh match directly afterwards, you tend to spend the next hour running around finding refs, as people are pants at reading timetables!

2. Balls - Every pitch had a size 5, and some had size 4's which we supply, however some student types half hinched some!

3. 3 minutes - yes its harsh, but it is standard practice, and without it the games would have finished around 10pm. The key thinfg is to be ready when you are supposed to be. If ANYONE from any of those teams (this includes spectators!) had actually come to see someone from Loughborough, or the ref about to do the game, to say they were having problems, then the game would have been waited, or re-scheduled, but the people who were knocked out by teh 3 minute ruling were those who did not tell us, so we can only assuem they had forgotten, or were still in bed. Beleive me, it's near impossible to find anyone when you need them!!

Thanks for the info though, it all gets passed on, and opinions are great to hear, just so you can get a good sense of feeling. You'll all be getting a feedback form sent through soon, can you ensure all your teams fill it in?

Cheers all.

ps: what exactly did the "bloke with the long hair" actually end up doing, other than teh mexican wave? If it's really stupid we can abuse him about it for months!!!

[Cat]

Many thanks are due to you and probably your back-up team too Chris.
Number 1:I think the problem with finding a ball was once looking for a ladies ball which someone must have nabbed, and the other time was someone from Cambridge being very picky! Perfectionist...
Number 2: I'm just too dozy to remember to ref a match once I've played - it's all too much!
Number 3: As regards to difficulty of finding people - yes! A tagging system recommended for every team! I kept giving my glasses to people to look after while I was playing, which I then needed to use when I wanted to shadow ref and they had always gone walkies!

[Cat]

What is his name? It seems rude to always refer to him as that, and he was really nice at the weekend. We all reckon his moshing with his hair down, plus knowing all the words, earned him the nickname 'Meatloaf'!

[mrplaybus]

Long time ago (98 I think), there where enough GB U21/ ex GB U21 lads there (ringers I'm sure but it was fun to play against them when they weren't all on the same team) had a game in the evening before the BBQ when everyone else was off the pitch, which was fun to watch

another point it's hard to ref a game when you've just been playing your heart out (and stomach, puking behind the goal line was spotted one year!!)

Finally, would it be possible to get the refs teams to ref the crossover games on, just so that the level of reffing is a little higher?


I always used to enjoy the BUSA events ( stopped being a student)
Keep on having fun
laters
a :drunk: :gun: