2019: Missed opportunities
It was a great & sunny day out, really enjoyable but missed opportunity to progress beyond the quarter-finals.
With the tournament scheduled on the 19th of April, so more promises for longer daylights and better weather prospect: we had four good weeks of practice in the Leeds training ground just before the tournament. All four weekends were dry, Yorkshire Meds managed to have 8 training sessions (Saturday/Sunday).
This year we have a new (permanent) addition to the team, Amalia Djemame as our sixth player. Her improvement, passion & dedication were simply impressive. The weather forecast for the day of the tournament promised good weather well in advance. And it did not disappoint, it was a glorious day with a very large turnout of spectators & players. We have done the usual meet & greet of the extended marbles family (other teams & their fan base, spectators, organisers, referees etc..).
In the main team’s performance, We played the first two rounds comfortably, winning by high margins. We all played well. Amalia was impressive for a new starter. We lost in the quarter final to Johnson Jets. It was our own doing. We were leading 24-14 and took a few turns and failed to score the 25th and we got punished for it. Paul Smith got in and cleared all the marbles to win 25-24. We were quite shocked but accepted the defeat.
The semi-finals were between Black Dogs vs Saxonia and Johnson Jets vs 1st MCE, and the final between Black Dogs vs 1st MCE. The German team (1st MCE) won, making German teams winning two years in a row. One striking point to note is that from the regular performing teams, players played better this year with breaks of 4-8 quite a few times for the top 6 teams.
In Golden Oldies, we had nine players in total, with four players from the team and 5 players from friends and families. With nine players, it was bound to have some of our players drawing against each other. Karim won against my mum and I won the game against Leila, my wife (not a good move!). Further down the qualifiers, Karim beat me; then to lose to Colin Gardner in the semi-final. Bob lost to Paul Smith. As was the case last year, Paul Smith won the Golden Oldies final.
This year, help were sought from the organisers for refereeing. Bob and I refereed all of the Golden Oldies tournament (except those were we played), as well as both main semi-finals.
