 |
Mixed Pickles Aachen
|
|
Eindhoven 1998
Ending on rank 22 and 24 out of 36 teams was worse than expected, but we
had a great time - as always. And actually we were not playing as bad as
the ranking suggests - we only forgot to make some Korfs. Overall we were
playing as a team, and stupid mistakes (as passing the ball to our opponents)
were rare. So we are looking forward to the tournament next year and promise
to practise aiming!
Utrecht 1998
In this tournament we came out last - a place usually reserved for a British
team (Sorry, England!). But here we were the only non-Dutch team, so no
wonder....
But at least we all learnt a lot, and we had a lot of fun as well.
London 1998
When our team came back from England, they reported two victories, one
draw game and four defeats. Overall this was not too bad, they scored quite
a few Korfs and also the tactics that they had practised before seemed
to have worked quite well. But improvement is still possible and necessary
as well.
E.U.C.K. 1999 - Rotterdam
===========================
In February 1999 the one weekend we all had been waiting for came at last.
We traveled to Rotterdam and participated in the European Student Korfball
Championship. All the preparations and plans we made during the winter
season now found an application...
Of course this report could begin like this. But perhaps the reality
is described better, if it starts as follows:
On some Tuesday evening in February we (a few Aachen students) drove
by car to Rotterdam. We were welcomed by some other students (the organization
committee) in a sports hall. There we got a "mentor", Adriaan, who answered
lots of questions and showed; us around in the pubs of Rotterdam. After
a nice evening we stayed over night in the sports hall together with lots
of other people from all over Europe. Our sleep found a sudden end at about
7:30 in the morning, when the organizers put some music on the speakers
to get people moving. On their page they describe it as "the most terrible
music of all times" (see [1]), which probably describes our feelings at
the time not too bad. But the sports hall had to be emptied because the
games should start at 9:00, which they did.
During a nice breakfast we analyzed our situation with respect to the
tournament: We were in one of four groups with six teams. In the first
round every team played against all other teams in the same group. In our
group were the teams Erasmus (Rotterdam), Leuven, Wageningen, Marmara,
and Lancaster. We knew that we had only little chances to win against the
Dutch and Belgium teams, but we thought that we could do something with
respect to Marmara and Lancaster.
Unfortunately, that was not really the case. We lost against Marmara
and managed to achieve a draw against Lancaster. So we ended fifth in our
group, meaning that we played for positions 17 to 24.
After the games on Saturday our mentor Adriaan showed us the way to
the mensa, where we had dinner. But a few moments later we realized, that
we would leave this place still hungry. Perhaps this was the reason for
our activities, which were described afterwards by: "After the Macaroni
the German Engineers ... started to develop a lot of different mechanisms
to launch all kinds of things to the salad plates. It all got out of hand,
the launching devices became to big,
there were object flying all over the place." (see [1]). I would not
go so far to admit that "things got out of hand", but we definitely had
some fun!
Then we decided to go to town for some reasonably sized extra dinner
before visiting the party. Again Adriaan was a big help. He also gave us
some valuable hints for our matches on Sunday. In the final round we in
fact managed to win all three games! That meant that we ended 17th. The
other German team from Dresden even managed to reach the 15th rank.
After all, we had a great weekend& thanks to the very good job
the organizers did. We also want to thank our mentor Adriaan for his valuable
help. Now we prepare for the next European Student Korfball Championship
or, if possible, for the first World Student Korfball Championship in Cyprus
in 2000.
References:
[1] http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/4763/euck_saturday.htm
by Max Neunhöffer
produced 1999 by Frank Lomberg
