Well everyone’s back and recovering from an incredible weekend. Unfortunately Three Less Horse and The Drof Ox Flailer Three were knocked out after the first two games, but The Toffs got pretty far…. maybe amongst the top 16 teams in Europe according to the scoreboard. I think. It’s double elimination, (winner’s bracket on the left, loser’s on the right) which makes interpreting the results slightly confusing. Hopefully EHBPC will publish some official results, in the meantime the top three teams in Europe are:
Helmets ARE required for this tournament! We need to register between 6 and 8 on the Friday evening in East London. This will be at the retro geek paradise that is Tour de Ville bike shop and there will be a BBQ going on. The tournament is here and the itinerary here
The courts will be 20m x 30m (bigger than the Cowley Marsh court)
Also note the following rules:
- No intentional T-bone’ or charging
- No overly aggressive behavior such as unnecessary elbowing, grabbing, pushing, punching with hands, pushing or kicking with feet, and headbutting
“Like” contact that is allowed:
- Non-aggressive Body to body, mallet to mallet, and bike to bike. Apart from the fouls listed above.
- Contact is only permitted within the play of the ball. Contact away from the play of the ball can result in a penalty.
We’ve registered 2 teams for this tournament. Info from the organisers:
“Ok, we’re going to have to close registration at 21. We’re pretty stoked that we’ve got that many teams coming up. It’s going to be great.
Registration will start at 10:30 AM on Saturday 11th. Play will start at 12:00 PM (NOON!) promptly.
The play will be Double Elimination. After registration we will randomly place all team names into the tournament brackets. Games will be FIRST TO FIVE or TIME OUT AT TEN MINUTES whichever is first. If the score is tied at ten minutes we will go to SUDDEN DEATH with the next goal scored winning the match. To keep turn around time as low as possible we will let teams know a few games in advance as to when they are playing next so teams can be ready to jump on as soon as the previous game finishes.
Before play we will also have a quick run through of a few rules (just to clear up any regional variations such as goal height limits etc etc) and then get straight in”
The weather was perfect, 17 teams entered and everyone had a great time. Thanks especially to the 13 teams who travelled to Oxford from all over the country.
It’s almost summer and Oxford Cycle Workshop are launching their new training centre. To celebrate we’ve got a weekend of cycling festivities, including Oxford’s first ever proper hardcourt polo tournament! Games will start at 12:00 on Saturday 9th May, on the Marsh Lane court in Cowley. Try and get there for 11:00 so we can work out how many teams are playing and match up any extra players.
If you can stay around for Sunday too when there’ll be a few informal polo games, an alleycat, music, a bike mechanics competition and loads of other stuff.
If you thinking of coming you can register at www.oxfordpolo.eventbrite.com or drop an email to tournament [at] bikepolo.org.uk. Or just turn up on the day, we’re quite relaxed about this whole polo thing.
