Didcot Korfball Tournament 
Sat 28th Aug 2010
Tournament Report

For the last tournament of the summer, City travelled outside of their usual competition area to take part in the Didcot tournament, full of such exotic sounding teams as Abingdon, Oxford Isis and Gloucester Lions (kinda like English football teams playing those from Eastern Europe before the saturation of Champions League football diminished the mystique).

The tournament consisted of an opening seeding match (all matches were 30mins long), to determine the pools (two pools of four teams). City won this 5-1 against Oxford City.

This meant that City were in a pool with Abingdon, Basingstoke and Didcot. City easily won their pool, scoring 15 goals and conceding only 3. Lunchtime saw the arrival of burgers (or not as the case was for some of us) and the traditional killer tournament.

Four City players took part in the killer tournament with Antony winning the competition and 5 cans of lager (knocking out Nicki, Alyson and Yan in the final on the way).

With lunch over the semi-final match against Oxford Isis beckoned. Once again City steamrollered over their Oxbridge rivals (Carla, Ying-Mei and Jack doing the damage) with nothing, not even a wasp sting to Nicki, slowing down their march to the finals.

In the final City once again faced off against Basingstoke, the team that had proved the most difficult throughout the tournament. City scored early on (penalty won and scored by Jack) but failed to capitalise on some attacking pressure (including missing a penalty) by then conceding. Basingstoke then switched to rebound, frustrating City with their boring negative tactics. Then disaster, Basingstoke scored. With 5mins to go City managed to win and score a penalty, taking the score to 2-2. With time running out and a penalty shoot-out beckoning Jack had time to miss another penalty before scoring the winning goal with only a minute to go.

So City took home the glass fruit bowl of victory (although the plate from the plate competition looked much cooler), with Carla promising to make Jack trifle in it. In addition, Jack, despite his two penalty misses, won player of the final. There were also numerous City winners in the raffle (the Buffy top trumps being a particularly good prize), so a good day all-round.

On the way home we stopped off at a very nice little Oxfordshire pub, where we had dinner and so very nearly won money on the Battleships quiz machine. Oh well maybe next year.

A good performance from everyone, with nearly all players getting on the scoresheet at some point. Thanks to everyone who came along and particularly the refs for reffing. 

SEEDING MATCH

Cambridge City  5 v 1    Oxford City

Jack (2), John R, Natalie (1), Alyson
Yan (1), Stuart, Ying-Mei, Nicki (1)

POOL MATCHES

Cambridge City    5 v 1     Abingdon

Antony (1), John R, Carla (1), Alyson (1)
Jack (2), Yan, Natalie, Ying-Mei

Cambridge City    4 v 2     Basingstoke

Antony (1), Stuart, Carla, Alyson
Jack (2), Yan, Nicki (1), Ying-Mei

Cambridge City     6 v 0     Didcot

Antony (3), John R, Carla, Alyson
Yan, Stuart (1), Natalie, Ying-Mei (1)/ Nicki (1)

SEMI-FINAL MATCH

Cambridge City     5 v 1     Oxford Isis

Antony, John R, Carla (1), Ying-Mei (1)
Jack (2), Stuart, Natalie, Nicki

FINAL

Cambridge City     3 v 2     Basingstoke

Jack (2), Yan, Natalie, Alyson/Ying-Mei
Antony (1), John R/Stuart, Carla, Nicki

Scorers:
• Jack – 10 goals
• Antony – 6 goals
• Nicki – 3 goals
• Carla – 2 goals
• Ying-Mei – 2 goals
• Stuart – 1 goal
• Yan – 1 goal
• Alyson – 1 goal
• Natalie – 1 goal