Cork Open 2007

‘My favourite tournament. I’m hungry. Argghegrgrghh’
-- Mary Harney addressing the Dàil
07/11/2007

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Finally it was time to get on the bus and make my way to Cork. Since August I’ve been eyeing this tournament up with a mixture of mischief and ambition. Last year the tournament went off without a hitch, supplying us with some interesting results, some hilarious parties and some international flair. My team made an early exit then and were looking to make up for it this year… Friday night’s Welcome Party saw us all lay siege to a new venue – The Thirsty Scholar, and what a choice. A suitably crammed beer garden, a sweatbox of an under-manned bar and about 30 drunk foreigners mingling with an equally raucous local crew made the session one to remember. There was chanting, there was pulling, there were too many pints and then there was Bróg. Cheesy music, shots, Murphys like there was no tomorrow and a messy Burger King were all to follow. My, how we’d pay!

The TDs made a ballsy move this year, introducing a Peer Pool system. In most eyes this was a success, pitting strong teams against strong teams and avoiding the whitewashes previous years have seen. In the group Broccoli were in the Belgians FÜF looked strong (and dreamy), winning their first 2 games with consummate ease, as did the Cork alumni team, Last Minute Dropout, who played hard and retained the disc well to beat Broccoli in their first game. UCD were the weak team in the group, yet showed promise and sure enough wound up in the Quarters. The big game was between Broccoli and FÜF for top spot but despite the greens pulling out their best performance of the weekend and winning 10-6, it was the Belgians who held onto 2nd seed. Elsewhere Trinity surprised La Fotta, spiders invaded anything and everything, UCC 1 cleared up in 2 of their 3 games and Johnny Chimpo looked stronger by the minute, taking care of their 3 opponents without much fuss.

Games over, and one thing on everyone’s mind - session. We made our way back to the hostel worried about nothing given we had an 11am start the next day (how little we knew!). Beers were the first priority before showering, food and the spirits got involved. Soon there were shots flying, potted plants being thrown, and lethal mixtures of whiskey and Jagermeister being forced on anyone within arms reach. A fantastically inept Chinese restaurant charged us about €2000 for 10 meals and didn’t give us rice, which let’s face it, is pretty harsh on a mob of budding Mary Harneys. Soon the Belgians appeared and all 40 of us started sessioning in the hostel’s front garden which saw the Belgians beat us comprehensively in a beer race before we made tracks Cypress Avenue-wards.

Why we’ve not been to this venue before I don’t know. It seemed to have the lot – a bar that had enough staff to cope, a sitting area, a standing area, a dance floor, a stage and most importantly a video projection of the people dancing on the stage! Genius. Prides of lions, rappers, male sluts, pimps, Mary Harneys and many others congregated and it was no time before ‘it was going off’. ‘I had good access to food, tequila and there was a nice big dance floor for a woman my size’ said Mary Harney. And she was right – well-timed finger food was key - wedgies with large poles weren’t but that’ll happen. Anyways, the night was quality despite Pete’s best attempt to come out of the closet via his music. Backstreet Boys to Peter Andre, nobody was safe. Unfortunately the Italians and Belgians didn’t get in with cans on the street and a bit of cheek being the reasons cited. Not much a bouncer can do I suppose, especially if he’s a complete twat. Dancing and drinking went on for a fair while, then people snuck of for food, Bróg, kip etc. and the night drew to a close.

Sunday mornings are shit. As Christy Moore says ‘you wake up the next morning head first down in a sleeping bag and you don’t know where ya are bejaysus…and you’re trying to get the zip open with your toes’…we had one of those. The fact that JD had come into our room at 5.30am and taken a single shoe and every bag from the 6 of us (in one trip!) and hidden it al in his room, didn’t help. Still, a cup of Dettoltea (try it at your peril) and some toast had us ready to play. La Fotta were the team we faced in our quarter, the reward? An eagerly awaited bash at Chimpo. The game began at a fast pace with both teams playing simple offence and controlling the disc. At maybe 4-4 the tide turned in favour of the Italians and, as always, the more mistakes we made the more the opposition grew in confidence. Suddenly we were 4 points down and the clock was ticking to a standstill. Davide and co. held out to record a solid win and knock us into the 5-8 bracket. To say we were gutted is an understatement. Last year Cota did likewise and this year we saw ourselves as semi-finalists at least…The team was down but them’s the breaks. We got on with it and won out our last 2 games to finish 5th with straightforward wins over UCD and the Luxembourgish folk.

Elsewhere, Cork Alumni faced FÜF and Chimpo played La Fotta having overcome their respective quarterfinal opponents. The Belgians won through against the locals and Chimpo looked more like themselves against the Italians than the teams Saturday meeting – a slippery 10-9 robbery, winning well to progress to their first final in 2 years. The final was a classic – big aerial match ups, two hard-running and intelligent teams and a loud sideline – did I mention the floodlights?? Chimpo came out on top after an excellent display against the fancied Belgians and showed that the future could well be orange as the newest additions, Mavis and Hag to name but two, stole the show. As always, credit to them for their clever defence, fast offence and solid partying. Great to see and Irish team back on the trophy too. The loveable Belgians took Spirit, DCU got the plate, Broccoli (thanks to Mary) won the Party and Cian got Final MVP. Big congrats to all.

Finally, thank you Cork Ultimate. The simple fact is that this tournament never fails to impress. The organisers might change, the party venues change, even the teams change but the fun atmosphere, the good crowd and the simple, thoughtful and hard-working organisation remain. It won best Irish tournament last year and it’s going to take a lot to stop it winning it again this year. Nay bad for a pack of boggers!

Anyways, until next year it’s ‘Goodbye to the Port and Brandy, to the Vodka and the Stag, To the Smithwick and the Harpic, the bottled draught and keg’…