Afterglowreportfest Part 2
Friday (Continued)
We then faced Germany in the 3rd/4th place playoff, who had lost to the Czechs on the other side of the draw, but it was decided that that match would be played another time.
After chillin' with the stillin' with some more beer in the car park (what chavs we are) we headed back to the hotel. It was decided that we would go out again tonight, and everyone needed a chance to get ready.
Being a student I had shaved £10 off the costs of my trip by only taking hand luggage, and so had only packed 1 decent shirt which I had planned to wear at the players party the next day to attract the ladeez. Fortunately Dave managed to help me out of these dire straits by lending me a lovely white shirt of his. Phew.
So, after a little ado, we (Myself, JW, BV1, Dave, Mike, Jody) set off in search of fun.
Fun turned out to be hard to come by. After walking around for a while led by JW, stopping every so often to ask some locals in very slow and loud English, we finally found a delightful and very packed karaoke bar. Post-first round of very expensive pints we decided to go and see if we could show off our unique karakoe skillz to these foreigners who so far had seen fit to murder Sting's Fields of Gold, which aggravated me greatly. After settling on that classic of classics, Backstreet Boys' I Want It That Way, we then found out, to our utter disappointment that the queue for the mic was 19 songs long. So, instead we contented ourselves with taking photos of Mike Amsden in ridiculous facial poses. Pictures on facebook for anyone wanting to see btw. JW also had a go at teaching me how to dance ballroom style. However I turned out to be gash at that so it didn't last for long.
We left after it had all gone quite quiet (2-3 o'clock). It had been a good night, and we needed sleep to prepare for OS tomorrow.
Saturday
Fatigue was starting to settle in now. Phrases such as 'No, it's okay, you go in the shower first' became common and after we'd all trundled down for the very conservative breakfast and left the hotel, some eyelids were still a little droopy.
OS turned out to be a world of fisting for me, though actually started out quite well with a 7-5 win over a very creepy swiss player. I snaked (snook?) for the win though, which was especially nice as it was a pull. Things plummeted downhill from there though as I lost all 5 of my remaining qualification games. However, not all was lost, as it turned out that basically everyone went through. Shortly after, however, all was lost, as I lost to Dimitri Stikelin in my first SE round. I had it on my 3 loads but just couldn't put ANY past him, which was quite annoying. After the match Boris told me he only had 3 fingers on his right hand. Obv I didn't notice at the time because he was wearing a golf glove. Fairplay to him.
After some more arsehole out in the car park with the rest of the guys we all started to wonder where Dave Morgan had gotten to. Utilising my elite detective skillz I went in to find him. And would you believe it, he was in the middle of giving Roland Prisi a damned good seeing to! 2 games up, I stayed to watch to the end. Dave lost the 3rd set quite badly, but came back to win in the 4th! Bravo! After a pat on the back and some celebratory arsehole out in the car park we all chilled until Dave's next game.
The rest of us entered the DYP shortly after. I drew a funny old man named Stephan Peter. JW had played him before and said he was alright, so I was happy at first. As luck would have it, we then drew JW and partner in the first round. It turned out that my partner had the most asymmetric game ever: practically every pass was a lane and every shot was a push. After the opposing keeper cottoned onto this fairly quickly the match started to turn into an endurance test as I blocked fairly well, though JW scored a lush pull shot on me. We eventually scraped a win after 5 sets. Soz John. Shortly after my partner decided to buy me a drink. Error. I was rubbish in the next game and played embarrassingly badly. Afterwards my partner told John that I seemed sleepy. Grrrrr.
Anyway, after all of those shennanigins ended and Dave's OS run was cut short by Bentivoglio, we went back to prepare for the players party (!!!!). I had mixed expectations about what this party of players might actually turn out to be. The dread was that it would just be a bit of a buffet and some cheesy music. How delightfully relieved we all were when, after walking for half an hour, we arrived at what appeared to be Bellinzona's rave central!
The place itself was small, and the drinks were extortionate (£4 for a Smirnoff Ice?!?!?!) but the music was awesome. Lovely trance remixes and some classic dance thrown in. Me and JW were pulling shapes like men gone wild and soon we had everyone joining in (though Boris and Ann-Marie didn't attend). After it became clear that the British would be the only real hardcore partyers there due to the rest of the european foosing population largely consisting of overweight, rhythmless men or players taking the game too seriously to attend, we started to rock on hard. Dave Evans was in his absolute prime as No 1 foosing ladeez man (sorry Happs) twirling women around like he owned the place. He even managed to knock one particularly drunk blonde onto the floor 3 times just through the sheer, unstoppable force of his dancing.
Obv it was largely a sausagefest (def: a gathering with a far larger proportion of men than women), and the women were mostly foosers anyway, so I didn't really have any luck pulling. I can also blame that fact on:
1) Dave Morgan's awesome dancing. I didn't tell him at the time I don't think, but he's got some subtle skillz on that dancefloor. Obv watch him the next time you get him in a club and take a note.
2) The fact that they appeared to let 12 year olds into the place meaning you had no idea how old anyone in there actually was. Some of the women were
small.
It was a cracking night though, and JW had possibly the sweatiest shirt ever on whilst walking home due to the sheer force unleashed upon the dancefloor by him in the 2 hours we were there. An inspiration to all true ravers.
Anyway, night over, Dave and I shared a surprisingly edible kebab and we all went back to the hotel. Before bed I was able to show off my awesome ability to quote the film 300 whilst watching it in Italian. A great success
Sunday
Sunday was a fun day. Not in the morning though obviously. Getting up early isn't fun any day of the week, and after the string of nights we'd had it was never gonna be a barrel of laughs. The 3 out of 10 shower (I have a habit of assigning marks out of 10 to all showers I use) we were all sharing had also decided to continue its trend of growing progressively colder as the days wore on. Defo won't be returning to this hotel if I go to Bellinzona again.
OD was the order of the day and the qualification matches actually went really well for everyone. Dave and John managed to take a photo of the monitor displaying them as the number one ranked team (now on facebook) after two wins in two games. Joe and I faired fairly well. I was playing upfront and we won the first game in good form. In my opinion we actually had an easier set of games than in our RD qualification series, and managed to win 3 in the end (only 1 by default). The toughest game psychologically was against a team that we started out brilliantly against going 5-0 up. However, the opposing striker then cottoned on to the fact that I can't properly disguise my brush passes on Roberto-Sport and they scored 4 goals in quick succession without me seeing it on my 3 using a frustrating pass bouncing off the wall and into the lane that did me every time. After a nervous time out and some words with Joe we went back in. My memory of what happened next is vague, but I think that Joe and I switched at one point and we eventually won 7-6.
As mentioned earlier, we drew Marcel in the next round and I got fisted up and down the pitch, though Joe blocked him fairly well. We lost in straight sets to leave OD.
Our final nations cup game was later that day against Germany in the 3rd/4th place playoff. I played with Boris this time rather than Dave Evans. After a hilarious opener to our match, against Brauns and some other guy, with Boris cracking in a chipped 5 bar bank hack straight from kick-off we then lost 7-3. No amount of jiggling could save us from this one I'm afraid, though I think that I played better in this match than in the other cup ones.
The highlight, however, was Mike Amsden's singles match against Tim Ludwig. Somehow, through a long series of well executed pull snakes, Mike managed to put it exactly where they don't like it: up 'em. I think he won that one 7-5 to spread some consolation in our otherwise dismal battering by the nation that have proven themselves to be the consistent thorn in our side throughout WCS events this year.
The Sunday DYP was another one-and-out affair for me, being drawn with another defender named Christopher (in fact, the one that with Marcel managed to knock me out of the friday DYP). Neither of us were great and we lost badly. The guy didn't speak a word of English.
BV1, on the other hand, had the DYP draw of his life, finishing second with a very very easily agitated Swissman to take home his first international trophy at his first international tournament! Very well done!
The rest of the day was spent watching the Nations Cup final: Switzerland Vs the Czech Republic and some of the women's singles and doubles events (referred to by a different name by some). Possibly the funniest foosing moment ever occured when a certain sultry German by the name of Petra went to collect the ball after it flew off the table and underneath the seating. Now, it's fair to say that this girl was a stunner. So, when Dave, John and I were sat watching her bend over into quite an uncompromising position between the seats we happened to catch sight of a German player sat in an opposite stand with the most massive grin on his face. National borders were broken in seconds as we all burst out laughing at our mutual realisation of the situation. Good times, good times.
That concludes the trip really. The rest of sunday was spent eating ridiculously over-toppinged pizzas, talking to an Irishman, and finishing off the last of the beer during more arsehole in Mike's hotel room.
Monday was just travel travel travel for most of us (except John who stayed an extra day to see more of Geneva) and I was glad to get home in the end.
A very good trip, and I'd like to truly thank Dave M, Boris, John, Mike, Jody, Joe, Dave E and Ann-Marie for making it so worthwhile.
Cheers, and thanks for reading if you got this far,
Chris
