2018: A challenging experience
In January 2018, we lost Akil to a sudden heart attack. Akil was one of our star players (my father-in-law and Leila & Halim’s father).
Akil played with us from our first participation in 2004. He was a true motivator, a skilful and passionate player, and indeed a true gentleman. The tournament’s main web page has made reference to Akil’s sudden departure and kept it there for a few months. We are grateful for this.
The tournament fell on 30th of March, with some unprecedented weather conditions; continuous heavy rains all day combined with low temperatures. So this proved a challenging environment, and the main/side rings were difficult to play on. Nevertheless, this did not prevent us from enjoying the day meeting all the usual regulars, teams, and their fan base, organisers & referees which after 15 years are part and parcel of our extended marbles family.
We played Golden Oldies. I got knocked out in the semi-final by Paul Smith, in his usual ruthless style, he went in first round and got 8 marbles out. Karim made it to the final Golden Oldies and lost to Paul Smith. Leila played both Individual final and best lady final (she came runner-up in best lady after Allison).
In the main tournament, we had a bye in the first round (as a seeded semi-finalist team the previous year) and then played the 49ers. It was a difficult game (Halim got knocked out). Karim really saved the day by knocking three of their players out (including Darren). So we made it to the quarter finals. We met the German team “Saxonia snippers”. We simply did not play well, that is collectively with the exception of Karim & Leila. We lost the QF. Saxonia was the first ever team we played back in 2004 when first participated to the championship.
The other three semi-finalists were same as last year. Paul Smith got a 19 break beating 1st MC Erzgebirge to reach the final and Saxonia beat Black Dogs. Saxonia won the main trophy of thee year. They had a number of players who could consistently got 3-4 marbles each.
Lydia was our sixth player this year replacing Papi Akil. I refereed 4x games (3x quarter-finals, the Golden oldies final) and 4x assist-refereed with Julia (2x semi-finals, final, individual final and best lady final).
