Hey, did you play GB? – A Collection of Thoughts
“It took me almost three months to write this down. I don’t do emotions very well, so writing this down was weird.”
Well, three months after worlds was like just over a month ago. WUCC starts in about two months. So doesn’t it make loads of sense to finally put this out? Better late than never.
Pre-Intro
Going into World’s, I felt fairly confident in our team. Our last few training sessions had been intense and after a warm up tournament with mixed results, we had a fire in us that would probably have been a lot weaker had we not lost to Italy. We were out for revenge. On the days leading up to the opening ceremony we had some light training sessions to get us acclimatized to the ridiculous conditions presented by Western Australia. Then came the week itself. The opening ceremony featured a load of singing and fun, but for me it was just the weirdest sensation – I just wanted to get playing, we weren’t there to sing, we were at the venue where I saw us getting a medal at the World Championships. (Oh how wrong I was, but that was genuinely my belief in our abilities).
What’s Gonna Go Down
However, I’m not writing to tell you how the games went, what I thought or what happened. We made some videos and the results are online. I’m writing to try to explain what it’s like to play for GB.
I had a love/hate relationship with the Development Programme (DP) and it was the first time the U24 cycle ran one. I got selected to be a captain at some point. Then there are all sorts of emotions and challenges I had along the way. So if any of those interest you, read on.
Development Programme
The DP was an interesting idea. A bunch of athletes chosen from an even bigger bunch of athletes, it turned out alright. There were some surprising omissions but the selected athletes got to train with some of the best coaches in the country, and most of the best players of their age, to improve the overall level of that age group. It also meant more people could experience GB and take these experiences back to their clubs. Sounds awesome right?
Wrong. I actually felt the average level of training got lowered significantly. Some players felt there was less motivation than there would have been to push yourself as you were unsure if you were going to be in the team or not, so it was hard to commit to the idea you were actually going to Worlds. Tour teams were disjointed, not really the warm up tournaments that they could have been, and ended up with people scratching their heads wondering why they were not winning games they felt they should.
Right? Improve the country’s club scene through the younger players. Meet loads of people and gain loads of resources for a wide player base. Help lots of people understand what intense training is like, if they haven’t had it before. Tour (?!?!) was fun, pushed lots of people to improve and exposed them to a higher level of ultimate than they would normally get, playing with people better than those they would normally play with.
For me, I felt like this is GB, every session should be 100x more focused than any session I’ve ever done before, but during the DP I don’t feel they were. When the squad was selected, that improved drastically. I have no doubts the DP is a great idea that could bear fruit in the future, and this was a first year of the set up so there is opportunity to learn from it, but I feel the squads could have been selected earlier to help the final teams’ goals and that it wasn’t a raving success this time around. After all, Ultiworld did say GB was one of the biggest shocks of the tournament…
Player and Captain
I was so happy to make one of the final teams. I always felt confident, but when I saw the quality we had in the final squad I got so excited for the next few months and felt that some of these guys had serious experience, so I was going to have to prove myself to them in this new environment, not just being a good player in the DP. I love a challenge, but I did take my time getting to show what I could do. I got played in an unfamiliar role and I am a solid player who rarely does crazy stuff, so even though I felt good about the way I played (mostly), it really took till when our line was bricking it – or, if you ask C Rad, probably Day 3 of Worlds – before I actually showed what I could do to the full extent.
From the other side of things, when the squad got selected, excitement built fast, connections grew quickly and after each training the team felt closer and closer and closer. It is an amazing feeling getting that experience, not with your uni friends or city pals, but with a bunch of great players from across the country who are all striving for the same goal.
Captaincy, that blind-sided me. Brummie asked if I would like to captain the O line at maybe the last training before our warm up tournament and I kept the role from there on. I never really expected it, but I think the O line needed me to just be me. It was a fun role to have on the team, but really the team had a bunch of leaders on the field who would pop up and do the business when needed, I was just the guy who stood there and told people to chill out, it’s only Ultimate, stop stressing and let’s score some points.
I was also the spirit captain of the team, which whilst very important, for most of the season didn’t mean too much as our team was very well spirited and didn’t ever rise to anything. At Worlds I had to be a lot more active in that role as we met some… interesting teams.
The Big Dance
Worlds itself was a weird experience for me. I was so excited the days leading up to the event and then we started our first day with two games we knew we would win, which was a bit deflating. I wish we started with USA or Canada, a real ♯welcome2worlds sort of game. However, on reflection, the start was perfect, and the venue was incredible. I have never played ultimate at a venue that has such a good surface, is that well laid out, has those amenities… I could go on. Plus the weather was sort of incredible, if I had to complain maybe it was too hot, but just drink more right? Ease in with the results and get comfortable.
It was really amazing to see all the different cultures of ultimate come together as well. Everybody always gets excited for Japan, Colombia and USA, but how about Italy, their noise was constant, or India who were the happiest team about. Every team brings something different, from USA’s intensity to Ireland’s banter, seeing everyone at the same place was a great kind of cultural chaos.
Reflections
I said I would talk about highs and lows. Well the end tournament was a bunch of highs mixed in with the biggest sucker punch ever. I’m happy we went out to such gracious victors as Australia, we played our best game of the tournament; I thought it was ours to win, but we didn’t. I learnt when you play a team so equal in ability, the loser is always going to feel terrible.
Now that the biggest low is out of the way, let’s restart with some mixed emotions. I said I would have preferred to play in the mixed team at the end of the DP. I was not selected and when I was reading the team announcements I actually thought I had been cut altogether. Then I read the Men’s team and I immediately got unbelievably excited. That team was stacked and best of all, I was actually selected to play in this group of disgustingly talented guys. That was a crazy 10 minutes of sadness, confusion and elation.
Being coached by Brummie was something that I had not heard amazing things about from people on the DP talking about their experiences, so I didn’t know how to feel in that respect. If you have ever heard anything negative about that man, I urge you to actually meet him. Hell, even try get coached by him, he is pretty damn good at that. He may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but damn he knows how to handle a team. He is also exactly the kind of coach I like, so **** the haters. Only positives from this corner.
The journey came with some challenges too. Firstly, the travelling from Scotland meant I had to be super organized with my time. I was in final year, writing my dissertation during the DP and doing finals, whilst travelling “half” the country according to some. Fundraising was another challenge in its own right, but once you start to put a bit of effort and/or innovation into it, money sorts itself out, the challenge is finding the right crowd and attitude to fundraise with. More challenges include: playing against some of our defenders (ouch) and the Australian heat (also ouch).
Now for the highs section: we beat Italy. This may sound silly, but a huge motivation for me individually, but also for the team was this opponent. We lost to them in a warm up tournament on their home turf. They are a great team but they were our only loss and we didn’t take too well to that. Especially after our rematch against them in the final, losing again. However, we beat them in power pools which was huge for us at the time. And that win also highlights something else – Italy came second. They went home with the silver medal, losing on universe to the USA. Maybe they can play better at crunch time than we could, maybe they didn’t turn up against us. However, that shows how tight the field was, especially in the top 8.
The highlights could go on for ages so I will leave you with the two next most important ones: representing GB, the team atmosphere and drive.
These are so important to me. If you feel like you are a top player who wants to move to the next level, you need to play with the best players and at that level all the time. Go do GB. Also you may feel slightly nationalistic (even for a country that isn’t your own, oops) and have loads of fun on the way.
What’s next?
Well, probably mulling. It took me almost three months to write this down. I don’t do emotions very well, so writing this down was weird. The experience was so big that I feel I should tell people they should try get the same sort of thing if they can. Ultimate is crazy, you meet so many people you would never meet otherwise and they become so important to you even though you are all weirdos who chase a piece of plastic around.
Seriously though, I’m looking ahead to World Clubs with Glasgow in the mixed division, and after that we shall see what happens. All my efforts are focused there Ultimate-wise.
I feel after this GB experience I should tell everyone to go trial. Even if you don’t want to do the full cycle, that one trial session will be a different experience. Now that I have said that, I feel like you may ask “are you going to trial for the senior teams”, my current answer would be “I’m going to Uni in London next year, isn’t that where GB train?”
Last thing
I presume most of the people who have got this far are a one of, or at least a mix of these: A) keen beans, B) people who love seeing my emotions c) Scottish.
So shout out to all the Scottish representatives on the GB squads, especially in the open team, you are all absolute babes.
I set out to try to explain what it’s like to play for GB. Mainly it was fun, it created unique bonds and pushed us all to be the best we could become if we were willing to put the effort in. That was regardless of whether you made the final teams or not.
