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Has it really been three weeks since I last updated things? A lot has happened since then. Worlds, Semi finals and some of the divisions have finished. Apologies for the silence: I'll try to keep you better updated over the last few weeks of the season. All the remaining games are now on the results page, so you can plan out the rest of your Summer without having to wonder whether you should keep Wednesday or Thursday free each week. Don't miss finals night for a great evening of heckling, drinking, dancing and possibly even some frisbee. Enough of the future though - what's happened since the last update? Well, all the cup finals have been decided. Fighting it out for the overall Cup title are Good Lord! and Herd Cocktail. Can Herd go one better than last year or will the newcomers deny them the silverware? The Plate final sees Curve take on Pastafarians. This should be pretty close with both teams high up in the second division, and Pastafarians looking to avenge their 15-11 defeat earlier in the season. Over in the Bowl final it's Choke vs Choke with Turbo taking on CE. On paper it looks one sided, but if Turbo go in with too much complacency I'm pretty sure CE will be up for showing them how to play. So that's the picture in the knockout competitions. Over in the League we're reaching the end game, and in some cases the divisions are all wrapped up. Choke Hazard Turbo have taken the 3rd division, leaving them all set for the double. Division 4 is wide open with Lurve and Balham All-Stars the most likely contenders, but Purve and PAF still mathematically able to overtake them. In the 1st Division, Galahs and Golden Ants Workers are the only unbeaten teams, but neither have easy games left - playing each other and either Cocktail or Good Lord!. In fact, Good Lord! look like a decent bet for the title if they win their remaining games and Galahs go down against Ants or Cocktail. Finally in division 2 it's a straight fight between Curve and Pimp My Herd. Pimp My Herd need to win by 4 or more if they want to take the title, otherwise it goes to Curve. Pastafarians are on -1 in the three way tie, so can only finish second (and will unless the game ends with Curve lossing by 3 or 4). I can't tell you much about the Spirit competition. What I can tell you is that the top two teams are separated by just a single point over the season so far, and their chasers aren't far behind. These last few games are still important, so keep those spirit levels up. I'd love to see all the teams finish with an average score above 10! Finally a big congratulations to the London teams for their performances at Worlds. For those of you who haven't already seen the result, here they are: Clapham (Open division, 10th place), Fire (Open, 27th), Iceni (Women, 17th) and Herd (Mixed, 27th). 1st July As Summer League passes its half way point and the evenings start to get shorter, it's time for another round up of how things are going with the League and Cup. Cup wise we've reached the semi final stage, with the possibility of a rematch of last year's finalists Galahs and Cocktail. For that to happen both teams have to win tough matches, with Galahs taking on Good Lord! and Cocktail taking on Golden Ants Soldiers. In the plate, we're guaranteed there will be Curve team in the final with Curve and Lurve meeting in one of the semi finals. The other finalist will be either Stacks or Pastafarians who get a rematch of their crossover game that Stacks narrowly lost after Pastafarians came from behind. In the Bowl there's a chance of an all Choke Hazard final, with Choke CE meeting Balham All-Stars and Turbo meeting the winner of ABH North vs Cutty Sharks. Games take place in three weeks' time, watch out for scheduling updates this weekend on the results page. Over in the League things are trundling along nicely. Division 1 still looks like a shoot out between Good Lord!, Flaming Galahs and Golden Ants Soldiers, but Cowboys and Herd Cocktail have only lost a single game, so could put a run together. Lucky 7s and Flump though are still waiting for first wins. Curve have almost certainly won the second division with Pimp My Herd the only thing that stands between them and sealing victory. Galahs 2 and Choke Hazard Turbo are the ones to watch in division 3 with perfect records and a match in the final week. Division 4 is topped by Lurve who, after losing their opening two crossover games have gone on an impressive streak to remain unbeaten. Want more about London Ultimate? Check out the Summer newsletter here. 11th June Next round of cup games are published but before you rush to look at the schedule, read on to find out more.... For all but six of the teams this round is the double header cup game. Yes, longest nights of the year give us the chance to play back to back matches and fit two rounds of the cup into one night. Your chance for double glory! Teams involved in double header matches will see something like "Cup R2G3" at the end of their match on the results page. The way things work you'll play a one hour game as described on the schedule, then the winner of games in the same group (so with the same R2G3 description) will play on one pitch, and the losers on another pitch. Yes, I know it's complicated. If you're unsure what that means for your team, ask your captain. If they're unsure get them to ask Ken or Dan. Those of you who lost your opening Cup game are now in the bowl. Four of those teams enter in what we'll call "round 2", while the other six get a bye and go straight into "round 3". The "round 2" teams are playing a double header so will play "round 3" in the second half of the evening. ALL TEAMS WILL START THEIR GAMES AT 7.15. Either you're playing two short games or you'll be playing on full length game. So, now that's done, the schedule is here. Looking at the draw, there are some pretty tasty games in store. Soldiers vs Workers should be interesting. On paper the Workers don't stand a chance, but this is Summer League AND a Cup, so you can never be too sure what will happen. Curve v Flaming Galahs is a great opportunity for Curve to show that they don't belong in the second division and take out one of the top seeded teams. Lose that though and we'll probably see a Purve vs Curve match in the second half, which should be fun. Finally Balham All Stars versus Clissold Critters gives us the match up of last year's pickup team against this year's. Critters have home advantage, but that's not always the benefit it should be. With the Slovenia match taking place on the Wednesday, teams could be somewhat depleted this week, so no matter how strong the opposition look, you're in with a chance. Good luck with your games! 28th May Crossovers are finished and the divisions are decided. Happily we didn't have to resolve any three way ties, or even go to head to heads. In the last night thrillers, Ovathrow's victory confirmed their third division status, while Cowboys' result assured them of top flight ultimate for the first time. Congratulations to all the teams who won their crossovers and to the rest of you, enjoy winning games during the rest of the season. I'm off on holiday for the next week, so there won't be any updates here, but you can find out what happens in the Cup matches on Twitter, Facebook and the Results page. 25th May Week 3, and some of the divisions are starting to take shape. Congratulations to Good Lord! and Lucky 7s who have a 2 for 2 record and are guaranteed a place in the top flight at the expense of Curve and ABH South. In the other first division crossover things are still tight and any team could go up or down. Looks likely that the key game here will be Cowboys vs ABH North, with ABH North looking to win by at least 3 points. That assumes that Pimp My Herd lose to the Soldier Ants, but with glory at stake here, I can't see them rolling over easily. In the middle division crossover, it's all settled after Pastafarians bageled Fugazees. That consigned Fugazees and Galahs 2 to the third division and confirmed Stacks' second division place. With the likes of ABH North and South, Curve and Pimp My Herd or Cowboys likely to be present in division two this year, it's not looking the easy option that it was in the past. In the 3rd/4th playoffs we've got Golden Ants Workers and Cutty Sharks confirming their escape from the bottom division, both picking up impressive 15-2 victories last week. Looks like they'll be joined by Choke Hazard Turbo and Ovathrow, but expect PAF to put up a big fight against Choke as they make a bid for division 3. This week also marks the first competitive matches for the teams right at the top and the bottom of the league. Galahs 1 take on Flump in what could easily be their most important game of the season. Meanwhile at the other end of the league, Balham Pickup take on Choke Hazard CE. Early reports suggest the pickup team is stacked, so this may not be the even game that their scores against Purve suggest. Good luck to everyone in their games this week. I look forward to seeing the results on Twitter, Facebook and the Results page. 19th May Second week already, and I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to get back out on the fields. Perhaps hearing about Mixed Tour 3 has made me jealous? For those of you who haven't already heard, tonight's Cup Draw night. Following the "friendly" match between Galahs and Cocktail, we'll be retreating to the Bedford where, as with the tradition of cup draws everywhere, we'll be getting a couple of has-beens of the game to help with the draw. Dan's bringing the balls and the bag, RV and Silver Bear will be doing the rummaging. I'll leave you to add your own wording to describe what's going on. Speaking of the Cup, I had someone asking me how it works, so here's a quick summary. If you don't want to read on though, don't worry: you can just turn up to the pitches when the schedule says so and we'll sort out the rest. Still reading? OK. With 26 teams we've got a 32 team cup with 6 byes in each round. First round is straight after the crossovers finish (to give us time to schedule the rest of the league!). Ten winners plus byes will go through to R2, while the losers will enter the Plate. R2 and R3 are played on the same night on w/c 21 June. All the teams still in the Cup will play a double header along with four teams in the Plate. The six other teams in the plate effectively get a bye through R2 and so play a single (full length) match that week. R4 will (probably) take place on w/c 19 July and will be back to a normal game. Final round follows on w/c 9 August with the Cup final the next week. Cup draws will determine who plays who in each round, and the order of the draw will be used where possible to determine who plays where. First team out is the home team and will in general get the venue choice, with earlier draws getting the advantage, but we reserve the right to play a little with the schedule to prevent two Balham teams having to play in Clissold or vice versa. Happy playing. I look forward to seeing the results on Twitter, Facebook and the Results page. 14th May Well the first week's done and already there's lots to talk about. Up in the top division Good Lord! showed that they deserved their high seeding with a good win over ABH South, while the new team in the other top flight pool, Golden Ants Soldiers, saw off ABH's Northern contingent. The big shock though has to be Cowboys who in spite of being seeded seven places lower beat Pimp My Herd. In the battle for second division status, Galahs 2 went down to Pastafarians in what looks to have been a fairly comprehensive victory. Looks like next week's game between Galahs 2 and Stacks could be the big match in this pool. In the battle for third division status, Choke Hazard Turbo showed that their Turbo name is well deserved with a crushing victory over Ovathrow. Looking ahead to next week's games, highlights for me include Galahs 2 against Stacks (and not just because I'm playing in it!), Ovathrow vs PAF, Good Lord! vs Curve and of course the (supposedly) friendly match between Galahs 2 and Herd Cocktail. I can't see this game ever being played just for fun and with Galahs lauding the Cup victory over Cocktail for the last few months, you've got to imagine that the Herd will come out firing on all cylinders. Hope you enjoyed the first week of Summer League, and that things continue to hot up. Enjoy Mixed Tour 3! 13th May The first games have been played and already we're seeing the scores come in. Whether you follow the London Ultimate Twitter feed, the Facebook page or just look on the Results page we're keeping you up to date with the latest scores. Five of the six results are already in, and a couple have even been confirmed by both teams. It's a far cry from last year where scores usually went up on Friday or Saturday and often drifted in during the start of the following week. So what do they tell us? Well, it looks like last year was a blip from Lucky 7s, who've come back strong and shown Curve they mean business with a 15-13 win. That leaves Curve probably needing to beat ABH South and the unknown Good Lord! if they want to stay in the top flight. They're pretty experienced these days though, so I expect to see them step it up when it matters and keep their place up top. In the middle crossover Stacks' win over Fugazees showed for the second time this week that a mixture of blue and yellow beats red. With another new team, Pastafarians, in this part of the draw no one really knows how this group will turn out, but tomorrow night should tell us more. PAF and Golden Ants Workers triumphed in the 3rd/4th crossovers with relatively comfortable score lines. Somehow though I think they'll need to fight hard if they want third division status.
It's good to be back playing Ultimate in the sun and heading off to the pub. Stay tuned to the website (or Twitter, or Facebook!) for the latest news on London Ultimate. 12th May Admin pages have gone live, team contacts should be getting emails as we speak. The URL for team contacts to submit scores is here. 11th May One more day! I can't believe Summer's finally here. OK, Summer might not be, but Summer League is! The schedule's online, along with the crossover tables and we're all set to start the league This year we're going high tech. Well at least not entirely low tech... We'll be trialling submitting scores online and results will automatically be updated on the results page and published on the London Ultimate Twitter feed. Time will tell how successful that proves to be, but it's our attempt to address some of the feedback we got last year about the website not updating rapidly enough. Now, if it's not updating then you can go and beat up your captain! It also means at the end of the season we'll be able to give you a more meaningful breakdown of spirit scores - showing which elements you can feel proud about, and which areas you can work on in the future. So, good luck in your opening games. See you on the fields... 4th May After a tortuous few days, the final entry for Summer League 2010 stands at 26 teams. You'll probably have noticed that's more teams than last year, which means.... four divisions. So what's new? Teamwise we welcome a number of new entrants: from the newly formed Golden Ants stable, we say hello to Golden Ants Soldiers and Golden Ants Workers: will the fighters prove their worth, or will the labourers be the ones that haul in the honey? Pastafarians and Good Lord! are both new names to me, and a second team from Choke Hazard completes the officially new teams in the league. Having said that, an all new Balham pickup will be gracing the fields - it will be interesting to see how they gel during the season. Last year's northern pickup team, Clissold Critters, are a great example of what pickup teams can become and it's good to welcome them back as a non-pickup team. The format is broadly similar to last year. First three weeks are crossover games, where teams are split into groups of four to decide who plays in the higher and lower divisions. Seeds 4-11 split into two groups to battle it out for the top division places, 12-15 for the chance to get into the second division and 16-23 split into two groups to fight for the third division. Top and bottom three seeded teams are scheduled friendlies for the first week, and then play a real match in week three. Still confused? Don't worry. The schedule's up and all you have to do is make sure you get your discs down to the right place at the right time. Easy.
29th April Did I say 26 teams? Don't quote me on this, but rumour has it that there might be 28 teams playing this year. Great for London players, not so great for the person who has to work out the format and sort out the schedules. It looks like we've got a plan though, so expect a schedule more complicated than a Tour, with five crossover groups of two different sizes and then leagues with varying numbers of carryover games. Oh yes - I'm in statto heaven. Confused? Don't worry. The schedule will go up next week and then all you have to do is make sure you get your discs down to the right place at the right time and we'll sort out the rest. Speaking of organisation, we've now put up the draft info pack telling you everything you need to know. This should answer any questions you have, but don't print it out yet - there may be some minor changes, particularly with regard to the format of the league. So, I'll get back to the spreadsheet, and you can get back to praying for sun. 25th April We're back. And we're bigger than ever. 26 teams, four divisions. Schedules will be out next week, games will start on 12th May and before you can say "I'm singing in the rain" Summer League will have started again. We can't promise we'll keep it sunny, but we can promise you that we're going to do everything we can to make this year even more successful than last year. We've listened to your feedback from last year and we're trying to keep the things you loved and improve the things you didn't. But don't stop talking to us. Tell us when things go wrong and we'll try to fix them. So keep your eyes peeled on London League for more info, but expect to start playing on the 12th or 13th. See you in the Bedford or the Brownswood!
21st August 2009 And that's it for another year. If you weren't there on Cup Final night, you really missed out. The final was a cracking game, with Cocktail and Galahs giving it their all for the trophy. It was pretty close till the second half when Galahs upped their level and started to pull away. Big thank you to both sides for giving us a great game. Then it was off to the Bedford for the party and prizes. DJ Kenee, fresh from the final, traded throwing discs for spinning them and got the house rocking. Prizes were awarded, drinks were drunk and the league was given a proper send off for another year. Congratulations to:
Thanks for all the games, for all the fun, for the feedback and the understanding when things didn't quite go to plan. I can only hope you enjoyed it as much as we have. I'm off to find somewhere to hibernate. See you next Summer.
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