News Archive
POLAND GOES BANANAS – By Justin Fishberg
London went to Poland under the banner of Go Bananas, which had originally been a team of GB and near GB players. We chose this name because we had invited Nathalie McGloin, an East Midlands Marauder, to play with us. Troye Collins had taken the step up from on court captain, to coach and team manager. Seeing him be so organised was certainly surreal.
Poland was definitely about the fun, and not the winning. Having gathered at Gatwick airport at 4:3am, we reached a rather drab hotel in a very drab city already exhausted. As we ate lunch and played silly games with napkin holders, we descended into hysterics – and this was before the team shot of Jeigermeister! A few drinks more in various bars around the town pushed us through the afternoon and evening and it was a real pleasure not to be under strict ‘no alcohol’ orders. We even had a spare day the next day, and most of us wandered around the shopping mall. I found a great pair of polish sneakers for just 16 zloty. When we got back to the hotel, the other teams had started to arrive. There were some from the Trevor Williams tournament the week before, but there were also Poles, Germans, Swiss and Austrians. Everybody was happy to see each other. Soon we would be beating each other up on court.
24 second shot clock This tournament was being run with 12 seconds to get out of the half and a 24 second shot clock, forcing teams to score quickly once they reached the front court. It makes the games a constant battle with no ability for teams to slow the game down to maintain a lead. Other tournaments like this are happening in Europe and similar experiments are happening in the USA. Players and spectators alike are positive in their response and changes to the rules are expected before London 2012.
Our first game was against GB Development, a team full of the new talent trying to break into GB, and it included London’s Bulbul Hussain and Steve Brown. The old hands were keen to keep the new boys (and girls) in their place. In the first few minutes our all-Paralympic line up proved their dominance. I came on with new girl Nat, who proved throughout the weekend that she didn’t look out of place amongst international players. We stretched the lead and shut the game out. Later in the afternoon we took on and beat the Swiss/Austrian team who would later claim 3rd place. On the Friday, we had another comfortable victory over the host Polish team and then faced the European Giants – 4 players from 4 different European countries, captained by our own Jason Roberts. We needed to exploit our superior fitness, and ability to put on subs, in order to overcome this team. We won with a single figure margin and knew that this would be the team we’d meet in the final.
But before the final we needed to get back to the hotel, clean ourselves up, and drag ourselves to the banquet. There we enjoyed lots of potato products, some strange meat dishes, and some mandatory shots of polish vodka. The night ended before midnight because the last of our pool games was early in the morning. We beat the German Rugrats without any scares and secured a final against the Giants. We had gathered big mats in our changing rooms, and 4 of us crammed ourselves in there to have a lie down and more surreal conversations before the big game.
For the final, we were extremely pumped. Our game plan was solid and we knew we were the fitter side. We blitzed the first 4 minutes and took a 4 goal lead, and we built on this throughout the first quarter. Already the Giants had lost any true belief they could win. The 4 pro-plus that their captain had taken couldn’t hide the exhaustion of playing every minute of every previous game. Go Bananas went bananas against the lumbering Giants and we ended the final with a 52-32 point victory. A few more shots of Polish vodka back at the hotel in the company of all the other teams finished off a great weekend and we were truly thankful to the organisers who put together a really well run tournament. We will be back.
