MK Tournament and Korfstock, July 28th 2007MK1: Caz, Kat, Katie, Mandy, Suzanne, James, Jon Howey, Nov, Paul, Simon, SpeckyMK2: Carla, Jo Lindsay, Laura, Monique, Sarah F, Andy, Clive, James, Jon P, Mark, Steve Also there but playing for Men in Black (boo!) - Ali, John, Kirsty, Marisca First the MK2 story from Jon! It was a beautifully sunny day, we managed to brave the various poetry readings, musical serenades and odd glares from passing morris dancers (second rate maypole dancers) and we were by far the most stylish looking team out there! Following a 20 second warm up and a team selection the GB squad would have been proud to call its own of we started off well holding Cambridge 2 – 2 for the majority of the game…aided by the a flat pancake shot Caz would have been proud of and a stunner from Laura… Cambridge are fairly handy so this was a good start but we eventually ended up going down 3-2… a trend that was to continue throughout the day, promising starts but somehow luck just seemed to turn against us and the opposition kept scoring (damn them)…things just not seeming to go our way. Other notable games 1 – 0 defeat to Oxford Uni where we were hugely unlucky not to win and the 1 – 1 with Didcot where Clive slotted away an ace penalty to keep us in the hunt and the game against Bec, where at no stage did they outclass us… (national leaguers) they just got lucky with their shots! The afternoon session started with us placed in the bottom group but our tempers and spirits unbowed. Andy fresh from his one-to-one training session with Dutch Jon was ready to show us all how to play the game and started with a bang. Sadly the afternoon saw us go much the same way as the morning, after another (???) frustrating game against Bec we continued to play really well without getting the results. Despite the impact play of Caz in our last game there were less pancakes than normal we ended the day as we started… disappointed but stylish! There were various beautiful goals throughout the day - I don’t have scorers but they were all fabulous and contenders for Goals of season in each case. I think the spoils to go Monique as top scorer from MK2 (3?) possibly joined by James who reliably informs me had 3 as well, think most of these were after the final whistle had gone tho… nice try anyway James. Someone really should tell fisher price to make these plastic baskets a bit bigger, as my dad remarked throughout the day “these baskets are actually quite difficult to score in aren’t they”… customer complaints addressed to www.fisherprice/makethedamnbasketsbiggeryouidiots.com special mention to James as well for his 100% shooting record, shame it only lasted 2 minutes and you only scored 2 with it but good work lad! Congrats also to Monique for being appointed to the Committee as the official “calming influence” to the MK sides… that astro-turf took a good pounding from my fists throughout the day (or was it the other way round?) but well done girl for showing that Death or Glory attitude and good luck in your new role. Other notable moments throughout the day were Sarah’s fantastic argument with a lad probably twice her size after taking an elbow in the throat… a swift kick to the groin ensured that he’d never play the beautiful game again… good spirit girl (it’s always the quiet ones)! A fun argument with the ref over the only ball all day to hit the precariously placed wires across pitch D (idiot ref) and probably the running repairs over constantly snapping side lines, more gaffer tape next time lads! The Bouncy castle took a good pounding from those with any energy left to spare after the days excursions but most of realised a willingness to jump around was not necessarily matched by energy levels and most only lasted 2 minutes, good showing! 20th was perhaps not where I’d expected us to finish but I think we were pretty good value for our days play! In no way did we deserve to finish as low as we did… we played the ball around well and got our shots up (they didn’t always go in but the effort was definitely there. We were never outclassed and I was really proud of the performances put in by everyone, especially from Andy and Sarah playing their first real korfball games in anger… excellent performances by both and a good days work to be proud of… excellent additions to the Bucks set up and looking good for League MK performances later on in the year. But it was a team effort and everyone pitched in really well… Laura at least one stunning goal, Steve as frustrated as I was at the fact those pesky defenders just wouldn’t back off and let us put some shots up but without doubt the most fashionable man on the field for us all day with the Oakleys. Really good performances from Jo and Carla (good feed and collect positions) who moved their players about well and were also putting the shots up. Clive ‘penalty king’ Ellis who kept us the game on a couple of occasions…if only we could of won a few more for ya big fella! Special thanks also needs to go to Mark for coming over in the afternoon… great to see ya buddy and thanks for all your efforts, sorry you got railroaded into a referee commitment soon as you got there but hope you had fun. Well done guys, see you all over the next couple of weeks, keep working. DEATH or GLORY!!! 
And a much less exciting report about the 1sts! MK1 had a stroke of luck when Birmingham, the other seeded team, didn't turn up, but there were still three other group opponents to overcome to avoid a difficult quarter-final. We started off with a 4-0 win against Ely Vikings, but then it seemed to be going a bit wrong when we went 2-0 down against Basingstoke, but fortunately we sorted ourselves out just in time to come back and win 3-2, with Jon Howey, who had come back over especially for the tournament, getting at least one of the comeback goals and I think Suzanne scored as well. We then hit top gear against Abingdon (also featuring a few Didcot players) and won 8-1, hooray! This was all on track, we had won the group and a quarter-final against Oxford City 2 looked very winnable, but we could never quite shake them off and they equalised twice after some long attacks, leaving a 2-2 draw and the dreaded penalties! Fortunately, we held our nerve to win the shoot-out by one goal - phew! This took us into the semis against Men in Black and some very familiar opponents. Unfortunately their Dutchies just couldn't miss with their long-shots and we were 3-0 down before we knew it - Katie came on for the second half and scored 2 long-shots, one of them shot while on the turn after cutting out the post and receiving the pass from Specky (well I'm writing this so I'm going to mention that, I think it's one of my best ever goals!!) but it wasn't enough and we went down 5-2. The 3rd-4th playoff was against Highbury 1 and the chance for some revenge for losing to North London in the Counties - after an initial exchange of goals, Specky scored twice to put us 3-1 ahead, and although Highbury then pulled one back, we held onto the lead to claim 3rd place. 
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