2023 Club Season: Glasgow Ultimate Mixed (GUX)

Mihael (Jimmy) Dimitrov has summarised the GUX 2023 season for The Release Point. The team was captained by power couple, The Dimitrov(a)s™ , Beth and Jimmy. Shaun Webb, GUX veteran, was lead coach with assistance from Phil Webb throughout the season.

GUX had a season to dream for in 2023.

We started off with the aim of placing in the UK top 5. Unfortunately, we did not really have the numbers for the Spring Invite event in April, so we were gutted to give up our spot. Despite that, we continued to focus on our own players and development, entering UK-based tournaments. 

Our season started off with a very good 3rd place at Uni Fans in Nottingham, albeit with few pick-up players. We followed that up with quite a disappointing 10th place at TOWWAPM, missing out on the top 8 bracket, but we were fortunate to play the GB Masters and Grand-Masters teams there. The UK tour season ended on a high, entering 2 teams at Durham with the help of local team, Brave Hucks. Our first team won the tournament overall with an incredibly dominant 15-4 win against The Brown in the final. 

Going into Regionals, the team had mixed expectations. There was the possibility of beating Lemmings on a good day and losing to SMOG 2 on a bad one, based on previous performances. The number of Nationals spots meant that qualifying was just a technicality, but we were there to focus on improvement. The Sunday of Regionals gave us games against both SMOG teams. SMOG 1 was a tough game, as expected. While we lost by quite a large margin, we managed to force a turn almost every point, serving as a confidence boost for the last game.

SMOG 2 were out to play, having a smashing first half and deservedly taking it 8-4, leaving us with a job to do. We miraculously managed to claw it back to 12-12, starting on defence on universe point. The appropriately named ‘dream cup’ of Ru Cullen, Becca Hardman-Carter and Alan Jeuken spearheaded our zone defence, and terrorised the SMOG handlers by getting a block only a few passes in, helping us to secure the win. 

Nationals time! In the meantime, all the European Invites had taken place, resulting in essentially 5 Euros spots for the UK mixed division. Whilst we anticipated a game against Oxford, our attendance at Euros eventually all came down to a game against BN1. Only a few points in, captain Beth was involved in a collision and took a very heavy tumble. The team was clearly shocked, but kept grinding and took a healthy 8-6 lead at half. Coming out with another break, we were comfortably in the lead. Beth’s mastermind plan of having Varun Raturi as a zone-assassin got us a Callahan, which all but secured the game. We won by a few points and qualified for Euros. Failing to qualify for Euros the previous year was devastating for the squad, so this success was a huge moment!

At Euros in Wroclaw, Poland, we were there for the experience and improvement, so we didn’t focus on specific wins or losses. We did still manage to secure a win, finishing 14th. Admittedly, there were several close games which we could have pushed to win, but it wasn’t meant to be. We had a great time altogether, with only one passport fiasco #IfYouKnowYouKnow. Shout-out to Ellis Stabler for coming along and taking some great pictures of the team.

There were several notable season highlights. Ru Cullen started his GUX career by winning MVP at several tournaments, as well as the overall male MIP. Incoming GUX captain Elise Camilleri-Brennan won female MIP for the second consecutive season. GUX rookie Becca Hardman-Carter also had a smashing season, ending it with a shared MVP award with captain Beth. (Editor’s comment – Jimmy won male MVP this season, but is clearly too modest to admit it!). There are too many other names to mention; a lot of our more established players also had a great season, setting the bar high for any new faces next year. 

The new season is led by Elise Camilleri-Brennan and spirit captain Kevin Lakritz, who have very exciting plans for the upcoming season and tackling the new EUCF qualification format!

Sign up for GUX 2024 trials here.

Have a look at The Release Point archives, and learn all about the origins of Glasgow Ultimate! >> http://thereleasepoint.co.uk/2018/06/b-tour-worlds-glasgow-ultimate-story-part/