Scottish Club Season 2024: DDD
By Becca Hardman Carter
For Deep Dish Discs (beach division), the ambition and success of the 2024 beach season (spoiler!) was ignited at the previous UKU Nationals. Expectations were low for our underdog team who travelled over 450 miles to Sandbanks Beach, Poole, to compete in a 7-team tournament for the 2023 national title. Among them were beach legends Jolly Rogers and Mighty Hucks, both teams stacked with GB beach and grass superstars. However, DDD proved themselves as fierce competitors by playing in a simple, fluid, chemistry-driven style, resulting in a bronze medal and a universe-point game against Mighty Hucks to boot.
And so, riding high on this surprising success, the DDD Beach Captains (Nick Byrne and myself) set out into 2024 with lofty ambitions and a full beach training season planned for those involved. A whopping 73 people signed up to trial for DDD Beach 2024. From this, we selected a training squad of 40, consisting of a core group who trained twice per month at Troon and Portobello beaches, and some remote England-based members who joined us for tournaments.
Trials were unfortunately timed for our first tournament, CUBE in Aberdeen, with most trialing players having already accepted spots with other teams. As a result, our first team (DDD) consisted of only four FMPs and MMPs, and our second team (Deep Dish Discs Deux/DDDD) was bulked out by some helpful players from Dundee Uni to make ten. Freezing wind and rain on Sunday morning also proved a challenge, along with some nasty coughs.
However, these factors did not at all limit our success, with our two teams achieving 2nd and 3rd place out of 9 teams. Furthermore, most faces on Ben Cornelius’ winning team, Tignes Titans, would also be seen playing for DDD Beach later on in the season (perhaps most notably Ben himself, a player critical to our success at both 2023 and 2024 Beach Nationals).
Joined by some of our ‘remote squad’ (Rosie Coward, Jamie Rabbetts and spirit captain Harry Mason), we next took to our frequent stomping ground of Portobello Beach for DDD’s own tournament, Surf’s Up. With larger squads this time, and far better weather, DDD won gold, and DDDD a very respectable bronze.
For UKU Mixed Beach Nationals, we had too many sign-ups for one team, so decided to push to take two, rounding out our first team with pickups Bel Plummer, Lynden Chiang and James Sully. This year, UKU Mixed Beach Nationals had grown, with 17 teams in attendance. We were very excited to be the only club to bring a second team, highlighting our season-long dedication to Beach Ultimate development. Most of us flew down on the Thursday evening, allowing for a bonding night-out in Bournemouth, a short training session and friendly between DDD and DDDD, and a mouth-watering and surprisingly sandless barbecue on Friday afternoon.
Our first team came into the weekend as underdogs again, seeded 8th despite our 3rd place finish the year prior. We claimed 2 wins in our pool and a close 5-6 loss to Reading, finishing off Saturday with a straightforward 8 v 9 crossover win (10-2 against Brixton). We then retreated back to our home-base to eat chilli and watch Shark Tale for the 2nd time that trip.
Disaster struck the following morning, with myself waking up with horrendous food poisoning. Since we were flying back to Scotland that evening, I spent most of the day trying to stop myself spewing, and did not manage much else. Meanwhile, DDD faced Splash’D in the 1 v 8 quarter-final. We initially went down by 2 points, but showed a tenacious mentality and brought it back to a tight 6-7 victory. We then went on to have a rematch against Reading in the semi. Injured coach Will Watt proved a useful source of sense (telling us to stop hucking to no-one), and the frisbee gods smiled – as they often do when playing a team for a second time following a prior loss. After being behind by 2 again, we didn’t let it phase us. We played smoothly, and came away victorious with an 8-7 scoreline, hyped up for the final.
Flashback time. In 2023, our 10-9 universe loss to Mighty Hucks had caused us to miss out on the final. This time, we would be playing them for gold. In 2024 however, the superstar lineup of Hucks proved to be no match for the chemistry we had gained over the season. Powered-up by our Chappell Roan’s ‘HOT TO GO!’-inspired chant (“D-D-D-D-D-D-D”), we achieved a convincing lead, and the buzzer went while there was a drastic scoreline difference.
The final possession featured a stunning flick huck from GUX handler Hannah Millard to a wide-open Angus Bain (the GB u20 superstar who had spent the game running circles around Clapham’s Conor McHale). He found Harry Mason unmarked in the endzone for the winning score*. The game finished 10-7, and DDD had become the (very emotional) Mixed Beach National Champions!
Meanwhile, DDDD, captained by Tara Dow and Petr Kujan, unfortunately lost their pool games. However, they won their most important game, the spoon final on Sunday, coming away with a very convincing victory of 9-3 against LLLeeds, and proving that even as a 2nd team, they very much deserved their spot at the tournament. It’s also worth mentioning that they provided an invaluable active sideline which contributed to the victory of the first team.
While the 2024 season ended with Beach Nationals, our success has led to an exciting recent announcement: DDD is going to the European Beach Ultimate Club Championships 2025 in Gdańsk, Poland (as the only British mixed team at the time of writing), and we can’t wait for it!
*See the video of this winning possession and the following reaction!
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Thanks Becca! We’re looking forward to see how DDD performs at EBUCC! And speaking of, DDD are currently taking applications for their EBUCC team, and you can apply here! Anyone is open to apply, and whilst there are no trials planned, priority will go to those who participated in the 2024 DDD Beach Season, with consideration also being given to skill level.
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We hope you enjoyed our 2024 season summaries! If you missed them, you can check them all out here: Alba, Heck, GUX and GUXYZ.