Southampton's sunny Saturday and showery Sunday saw some suitably sublime play from ABH A. Despite being up against both the Herd and Flump at the start of the game, those results went against us. Victory in every other game saw us hold seed at 9th. ABH B, the only second team entered, finished 19th.
The open team won all their pool games, but missing players on Sunday meant they only improved their seed to 19th. That would place them in a promotion spot at a tour event, and indeed if the two foreign teams had not been there, it would have them 1st in the B tour.
ABH entered two mixed teams into the full set of mixed tours. An unfortunate initial seeding meant the B team had to fight their way to a final seeding of 30th. The A team stayed in the 10-15 pool all season and ended up 14th on points. The weather held up for most of the time, and the sideline support was fantastic.
At the end of Tour 3, ABH 1 came 4th in the B tour and ABH 2 came 16th. Surprisingly good weather in Mansfield meant a lot of drinking, both water during the games, and a lot of other beverages after. A good time was had by all.
In between the various ultimate tournaments, ABH's social secretaries have found time to organise a number of social events. Two CD swaps, an evening of drinking, curry and foosball and a house party in the middle of tour 0. Multiple evenings of fun in excellent company and more on the way. More to come in May, including sloshball and the "70th" birthday testimonial match.
Tour 1 was in Bristol this year and ABH sent two teams to brave the bizarre april weather. The bravest camped by the pitches and were rewarded for their stupidity with a layer of snow covering everything on Sunday. Despite more snow during falling during the games, ABH B gained promotion from the C tour to the B tour, and the a team remained in the top 8 of the B tour.
ABH sent a team to Paga this year to spend easter weekend playing beach ultimate in Italy with parties every night. Not a bad deal. To get some idea of what it's like, watch the blockstack.tv episodes that cover it and look at some the photos.
Steve G (Blockstack): Can you summarise the Paganello experience in 100 words or less?
Dani Wood (ABH): No.
ABH had another great set of results at LWL4. The B team, with a severe shortage of subs and playing iron woman at times, won 3 of their games, only losing to chichester (who came 2nd in the 1st division at WL1).
The A team beat The Galahs, herd 2 and brighton and only narrowly lost to herd 1 in the final.
ABH had another strong performance at winter league 2. ABH1 coming 2nd and a badly seeded ABH2 dominating their pool with an aggregate score of 38-3. WL3 was cancelled, so ABH played a mini-tournament in hyde park. ABH 1 and 2 were joined by Curve and Revolution for 3 games of spirited, muddy ultimate. The following weekend brought a clean sweep of wins at the ladder league event. It hasn't all been ultimate though, the social secretaries have done great work in organising CD swaps, Bowling nights and of course, the start of season party.
ABH entered two teams into this month's winter league. Apples played in the 1st mixed division, and bananas in the third. Despite beating chichester, who finished 1st, apples finished 7th with two wins and two losses. Bananas narrowly missed promotion as Galahs 3 picked up some quality ringers.
2007 has been a good year for ABH. The mixed team going from strength to strength in the glorious sunshine and the open teams showing their skills despite the dismal weather. The A team maintained their position as the team to beat in the B tour and the B team demonstrated that sometimes two captains are better than one.
Mixed: 18th at Tour. Finished 10th at Mixed Tour 3.
Open A: 20th at Tour. Finished 3rd at Open Tour 3B.
Open B: 31st at Tour.
Winter League has finished and ABH's open team have achieved their highest ever ranking in a London league.
ABH finished 9th of 26 teams in the highly competitive open division, and took 7th place in the Charity Shield against teams from some of the top clubs in the country.
ABH's mixed team have finished a hard fought winter campaign in 8th position.
We've introduced a number of new players this winter, and with the team really starting to work well together it promises to be a great summer of mixed ultimate.
ABH have attended Mixed Tour in Romsey
Captain Ant has compiled a missive on our trip. Click here to to see what we did, and where we came.
ABH travelled to Bristol to compete in Open Tour 1 this weekend
Ant has kindly typed up a report on ABH's magnificent performance. Click here to read it.