Milan - 27 April 2013

Marce

The following 14 strong Geezer contingent made up of 13 players and 1 indomitable supporter (most valuable valuables carrier) were all set and psyched to contest the Milan Touch Spirit ANZAC Day Tournament: Andrea Szabo, Anne Seidel, Helen Freer, Jen Hinam, Leanne Matuszyk, Rachel Barrett, Sandra Cooke, Alex Cuppage, Benoit Laveau, Dan Lovett, Jezza Lord, Marcel Fok, Matt Becquerieux, Tom Higgs.

However, things never quite go as planned. On the travel-down-to-Milan-day, Jezza had to pull out because of a stomach bug. Misfortune continued when poor Leanne, who had made the 3.5 hour trek to Milan had her hip flare-up to such an extent that she got no sleep and halfway through the night felt she had no choice but visit a Milanese hospital because of the pain. You were both missed on all fronts!

In the knowledge that both Anne and Sandra could only make the trip down on the Saturday morning, the task for the remaining female Geezers became clear, Helen, Jen and Rachel would have to play without subs for the first two games. Then, when things just started to look up in the form of "Supergirl" Sandra's arrival, more misfortune. Sandra had injured her knee playing touch the previous Thursday and her contribution on the field finished after half a game! Anne arrived a bit later on and thankfully enabled some respite for the remaining games. A massive thank you and congratulations go to the ladies who played out of their skin: Anne and Rachel played absolutely brilliantly at what was not only their first ever tournament but also their second time playing Touch (in trainers)! The experienced Jen ran tirelessly as always and took on a welcome amount of leadership on the field. A lovely drag and switch with Matt ended in a great assist and score which sticks in the memory! And Helen, well, she deserves a special mention as she only went on and won the title of best female player overall!. The French Benoit-Matt Middle partnership caused the opposition problems all day with their Gallic flair. Links Dan and Tom added the steel to the performances and contributed massively with points on the board. Stand out was Tom's quick penalty tap that kept us in the game against Tiki. A score to reflect true team performance was the Anglo- Irish-Swiss axis of Alex, Marce and Helen (in that order) with Alex playing a reverse pass to Skip who passed on to Helen to score.

And what of the weather? Well it could not have been any worse! It rained and rained and we all looked a very bedraggled bunch by the end. How did we perform? Very well is the "Skip" of the day's assessment - and with total selflessness. We achieved 4th place but so nearly came close to getting into the final after qualifying in second in our group behind the eventual winners, Leprotti Torino. We played the other group winners Tiki ANZAC for a place in the final and we could not be separated after normal time (5-5 the score) and so the Geezers once more had to endure the dreaded drop off, which we sadly ended up on the wrong side of. This was by far our best performance of the day and when it all came together. We defended with great resoluteness against a team with two professional rugby playing Kiwis, one called Sinoti Sinoti who plays professional rugby union for Zebre, the other for Benetton Treviso. Eventual winners, Leprotti Torino, included a guy from the Australian over 30's mixed team who was holidaying in Northern Italy, so there was quality all round, Sadly in the contest for 3rd place we could not raise our game enough against the very useful and youthful Brianza Toucherz and we had to settle for 4th place.

The Geezers then "dappered" themselves up and made ready to party, but not before more misfortune. Helen's handbag was literally stolen from under her feet. To Helen's credit she managed to put this disturbing setback to the back of her mind and joined in the festivities with 100% commitment. It is fair to say, the Geezers put in a champion's performance in after party celebrations. Halfway through the night, Leprotti Torino were singing the amended version of Earth Wind and Fire's song "September": "ah di ah everyone's a Geezer, ah di ah everyone's a Geezer, yeah!". For many the partying continued on until the sun came up.

Thanks everyone for making it another legendary trip and a speedy recovery to all the injured.

Skip Marce

Frankfurt - 1 September 2012

Todd 

Ahoy Me Mateys!

The Geezer Armada set sail from all points on the map to rendezvous in the port of Frankfurt.  Having been delayed by storms for 2 hours in Basel, the Basel crew hit the grog heavily on the journey and arrived three sheets to the wind.  Anne Bonny’s ship was also delayed after wandering into the Sargasso Sea and the Landlubber could be heard shouting “Ahoy Cap’n Anne!  Yer on the edge of world!  Steer her starboard or we shall surely fall off the map!”

The armada was finally united in the port by midnight and the pirates where eager to shake off their sea legs with a yo ho ho and a bottle o’ rum.

By the morn’ we found that our crew had been pilfered by other ship captains.  Lured by promises of rum and wenches, we lost that Scallywag Richo to the treacherous Dutch flagship.  Cat and Irene also were recruited to share duties with the enemy crews and Irene took a musket ball in her peg-leg and was hobbled in the afternoon melees.

Unfortunately the first signs of battle found the crew a bit shaky in our hands and we were quickly out flanked by an eager (team).  Losing the battle 5-4.

The second round of attacks saw us improving our defense, but were outmatched .

It wasn’t until the third battle, that we finally shook off the rum and whiskey and fought like true pirates.   Winning the battle 7-2 .

As the Geezer crew took a break to pour salt in our wounds, we were affronted by a ghastly tucker that looked like what crawled out o' t' bung hole.  It wasn’t long ‘til we had scarfed down our lunch and were heading back to the battle, determined to avenge our losses.

The afternoon battles saw the appearance of Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow donning their full pirate regalia in battle, which inspired the crew to fight valiantly.

Nice - 10 March 2012

Jezza 

As the crowd gathered at a seafood restaurant within the market in Nice, thoughts of the tournament were far away. The wine flowed, oysters were shucked and sea urchins were... handled quite carefully. All of this was washed down with some ridiculously expensive Armagnac. Life in the South of France isn't really conducive to worrying or revving oneself into a pre-game frenzy.

In the spirit of "when in Rome", Coach Mike decided early to dispense with the play-book and Captain Bertrand only expressed surprise that there actually was one. It was going to be all played off the back of a drive, then a centre "option" and a wide pass from the right link. Heads up, split the defence, spot the gap and fling it wide or dart back inside. Exciting stuff and it worked pretty well.

It was eventually named "gan-ger stur-re" or "gäängi stööra". But you will have to ask Irene or the stranded French driver to understand that one.

The pool matches flew with wins over Kituro (Belgians who played very well), Vienne (who seemed to have recruited a lot of players from Vienna) and SBM who were in their first tournament. The touch was good and the team began to really gel and was rock solid in defence when not forgetting where their line was. Jezza dislocated a finger, refused a trip to the hospital, reset it himself and and played on... is there anything tape can't fix? The tries were fairly well shared around with some trademark dives from Claudia and Irene, scoots from Steve and trickery from the 3 Nic(k)s combined.

The semi was a very quick and fast game against Touch Azur, the hosts, finally succumbing to Geezer strike power and resolute defence, led by Jen. So it was another final...

The Supercats from Edinburgh were bristling with Scottish internationals and had swept all before them, but the Geezers held them in a defensive stalemate for much of the first half with both teams attacking the try lines but with little success. We were only down one unlucky try at the end of the first half. Unfortunately the other team must have overheard Bertrand's rousing call to get a try straight after half time and almost immediately the lead had blown out a bit. Heads started to drop a bit and we were caught on our line for a bit before Mel took charge.

Quick rucking dragged in the defence and created the space for some brilliant long passes that flew like bullets from Mike in the middle. As they soared past the last defenders shutdown, Mel plucked them almost nonchalantly from the air and seemed to whisper "why didn't you just start passing too me earlier" as she ended with a hattrick. Too little, too late unfortunately against a very good opponent 3:6 in the end and a proud 2nd place. Stellar performances from Mike Baker and Clio in their first geezers outings, cemented a good team performance.

Naturally we won the boat races against both the Supercats and Brussels in the after match. Natural Geezer supremacy was unchallenged.

Grenoble - 28 January 2012

Jezza 

It was the consensus of the 6 lasses and 5 laddies who ventured to Grenoble that we were almost certain to win our first "mixed" tournament of the year: the omens were good, the team was strong despite losing our Achilles (Nick Gray) and we even had a relatively late start the next day... But for this hubris and our failure to do the usual drunken debauchery on Friday night the gods would exact their toll.

On one of the rare tournaments where we had more girls than guys, the organisers had neglected to mention the mixed tournament would be fought out on gravel, and would not be all that mixed after all and was the official trials for the French Mens team! The penalty for fielding 6 guys was not the normal 1 try per missing girl per half, they just had to wear a ridiculous rubber ring around the waist. I would take a 6-0 head start thanks all the same. The refereeing standard was (cough) Gaul..ing! In this context, the team did pretty bloody well when considering we "lost" one game to the French Men's Open team by 8-2, which would mean a draw in any other comp. In fact under normal scoring we didn't lose a game all day. We steadily improved as the day went on and the only other really mixed team we played were kept scoreless and dismayed ;-)

Claudia was relentlessly brilliant and was clearly the player of the day, she was ably helped out in the middle by Joelle (in between milk runs) and Sandra. Megan scored an awesome first try in Geezer colours and Nick showed that playing 7 and refereeing 4 games was easily taken in his stride, scoring 4 tries along the way. Stevo was a work horse in the middle and also did a great job of organising the tournament and the complicated logistics of getting us all there and back without ever touching our wallets or significantly lightening them. All round it was a good show in testing circumstances with a lot of people in new positions and doing bloody well.

The court session was dominated by the pungent smell of coffee vodka and sour grapes being transformed into rich red wine... WOTSOT applies, so your correspondent won't mention who presidentially drove 300 km with the handbrake on, or who was sighted being ridden and whipped like a horse by a local leech in a nightclub before dragging himself home at 7 AM, or the long time club member who inexplicably brought an eski (chillybin)  on tour and didn't pack it with beer! Beer is the real mother's milk!

A number of diets were sacrificed as the team did its customary homage at KFC on the drive back. The gods are now appeased and our good fortunes can be restored in Manchester.