WCBU 2017: Playing for GB Men’s Masters

Catching in traffic for a score vs USA

I returned from the World Championships of Beach Ultimate 2017 a couple of weeks ago. The journey started back in September last year when trials were announced. I originally signed up for the Mixed Masters as well as Men’s Masters teams, and the first trial was actually playing with Men’s Masters at UK Beach Nationals. We came 3rd, beating the Grand Masters in the 3v4, and Hex came 1st in the Mixed division. Feeling out the vibe for the Men’s and the Mixed teams I made my decision to stick with Men’s, passed the further trials, and then trainings began! We had several months to prepare for heading off to Royan in France for WCBU 2017 in June.

We’d meet up every month or so on Bournemouth beach to play vs the Grand Masters. We had intended to go to a warm-up tournament but couldn’t get into Copa Tenga (which I really want to play in next year), so it turned out that our only training was playing against the Grand Masters – they were great. That team is made up of absolute legends of UK Ultimate, and every single person was a challenge to mark. They beat us overall – probably winning about 75% of the games we played over the various weekends. At the end of it all we were very aware that our training had been limited to playing against one team of players who are all older than us, so things might be very different at Worlds.

 

GB Men’s Masters average face

The vibe on the Men’s Masters team was great throughout the whole week in Royan. We didn’t get all the results we wanted – losing in sudden death three times where we felt we should’ve taken the wins (once vs Netherlands, once vs Australia, and finally in our quarter final against Spain after having the disc to win 3 separate times!) – so that was fairly gutting, but at the end of it we all had each others backs and it was a very enjoyable team to be a part of. By the end of the week we were down to 10 players for various reasons, which made the final few games tough, and we finished 8th. After the last game we all voted on MVP – overall, offence, and defence. I was very happy to win the overall MVP (and a prize of #10 Japan jersey!), Dave “Thrash/Stobbo” Stobbs won offence MVP, and Ewen Buckling won defence MVP.

I did pretty well in the stats – coming 3rd in the Men’s Masters division. I feel like I’m a better player now than I was before – playing regularly against the Grand Masters has helped a lot, but also the fitness work… finally I have been motivated to get out running in the hills regularly, and not letting myself slack off for a week at any point.

I got to play against the USA in the power pools, and it was clear they were operating at a different level to the other teams – one that I recognised and felt familiar to me, but not one which I’ve been having to play against for what felt like quite a long time. Instead of just doing the hard yards, you had to be very smart about where and when you are moving, as you can be sure they are thinking about it just as much. It was a good experience, despite the USA being quite ‘hands-on’ with their defence – I had to tell them a few times not to touch. At one point Voodoo hucked it to me and this guy (Barrs Lang) caught up and got a sick layout D over my shoulder – I thought he wouldn’t reach and that I had enough time for a safe clap catch, but that was a foolish thought! Someone captured a good photo of it:

Won’t make that mistake again! When playing the USA, catch the frisbee as early as possible, because the chances are that defender will catch you and their bid will make contact with the disc.

Overall it was a great time in Royan – would have liked to come away with a medal from Worlds, but fun times were had, and it’s inspired me to try out again for GB Masters teams in the future.

I got to meet ‘little Felix’ – Bex Forth’s second child

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