This Easter was ‘I Love Tour’s’ Festival Italia on the Beaches of Rimini. The beautiful North Italian coast running along the Adriatic Sea saw a two-day tournament with universities from across the UK. As with most underdog stories, Royal Holloway’s contribution was a team of eight players from the Ultimate Frisbee team, Holloway Ultimate, or HU? for short.
The team consisted of our President Adrian Hornby (top left), Evan Vellis (top middle), me (Nick Munro Turner – top right), Ben Gorman (bottom left), Russell Franklin (middle), our Secretary James Butnik (middle right), Will Laffin (bottom middle), and our newly elected Captain Will Basham (bottom right). Adrian has been working tirelessly for months to organise this trip and it really paid off!
For those of you who don’t know what Ultimate Frisbee is like I’ll explain briefly. The teams face each other at opposite sides of the pitch (in this case, teams of five) and both of them try to get the Frisbee to the opponent’s side of the pitch in the area called the end zone. Usually, each player marks the player opposite them but there are various other tactics you could use. Once you have the disc, you have to keep one foot constantly pinned to the ground, whilst the players on your team will try and get away from their marker so that you can pass the Frisbee up the pitch to them. If you take too much time, drop the disc or throw it off the pitch, then the opposition team will get control of the disc. Ultimate Frisbee is unique as it is the only sport where there is no referee. The players on the pitch decide together whether or not a foul has been committed or a point has been scored.
Here, the matches lasted 25 minutes each. It may not sound long but there is a lot of running involved as players try to keep marking their opponents, make quick cuts to get the disc and jump to the get the discs that would normally be just out of reach. Coupled with the fact that we only had eight players (later seven due to sunburn) meant that we had players who stayed on point after point whilst our opponents took substitutions to rest between points.
Previously, I’d only really played Frisbee in the sports halls or in the fields, I’d never played on a beach before. When we first got out there it felt very strange. It was a lot more difficult to run because of the friction from the sand. But it also meant that we could really throw ourselves after the disc, launching ourselves into the air and landing in the soft sand rather than the harder surfaces I’m used to.
It should be mentioned that the matches we played on tour were Will Basham’s first as Captain, as he is taking the reins from Tim Haggart. He stepped into the role spectacularly keeping us fit and on our toes whilst employing decisive tactics. And just look at him flying through the air in the picture above!
We arrived in Rimini on Tuesday 6th April having already spent a full day on the coach along with the Badminton and Frisbee teams from Swansea University. As we stopped at Dover, we saw a team getting kicked off their coach for drunken behaviour. Luckily we made it and we got to enjoy a day of exploring the local area, picking out good restaurants and relaxing on the beach. The matches started the next day. Our first match was a tough one as we were put up against Manchester, who were widely considered the best Frisbee team there. It proved a real trial to keep up with them and their players were large enough to be able to scoop the disc out of the air with ease. In the end, they won 11-3.
We were determined to do better in our next match against Bath and we did! By now, we were making nice easy passes to each other and keeping the disc away from the other team. We won 6-0. Our next match was against our coach companions, Swansea’s second team. In this game, there were loads of high discs, but great jumps from our team (particularly from James and Adrian) allowed us to turn around and score points. We won this match 7-0. The last match of the day was against Sheffield. They had some astonishingly fast players who made our players panic and make mistakes. We lost to them 7-3.
But whether we won or lost a match we always got together with the other team to talk about the match with the Captain of each team giving the other team feedback on their performance. After that we played a great variety of games such as Gibbon, Ninja slaps, Mac line, Penalty shootout, Assassination, Stories and, my favourite, Flight of the Penguin!
The next day, came the last round of matches. Since the first match was a crossover, which would allow us to qualify for the semi-finals, we all got back to the hotel nice and early from the club the night before. In this match we were up against Swansea’s first team. Will Basham employed a zone formation to cover areas on the pitch rather than opposition players. We were stuck at 3-3 for what seemed like forever. It turned into a battle of shear endurance, but with a long throw and a desperate dash to the end zone we managed to score and win 4-3! But in our next match, we were up against Manchester again. We managed to score the first point but after that their constant high discs earned them many quick points allowing them to win 9-1 and face Sheffield in the final. We were up against Bath once again, fighting for third place. They had come on a lot since we played them the day before and they really gave us a run for our money. They were quicker and much more precise than before, which shook us at first. Luckily we had also become a better team. There were many times when I thought the disc was certain to fall to the floor when someone from HU? would jump out from nowhere and land in the sand clutching the disc. In the end we were able to win 5-3, coming third in the tournament! The only thing left to do was to bask in the sun, hit the clubs with the other sports teams and sample some nice Italian ice cream!
‘I Love Tour’ do university sports tours throughout the year for sports of all shapes and sizes. HU? was the only sports team from Royal Holloway this Easter. We can’t be the only ones who want a party filled sports holiday! If you want to find more details on ‘I Love Tour’ and perhaps make a team booking, visit:
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