Rich's Blog: My First Ever Weekend Of Sport

I took up korfball last year having played no sport for a decade. None. 

Getting out of bed early on a Saturday to spend most of my weekend running around was, frankly, ridiculous. But this weekend I did just that. My still-aching legs are proof that it wasn’t a dream.

On Saturday, I got up early and joined a happy band of City korfers on the trip to Bristol for the Bristol Thunder indoor tournament. However, no tiredness was in evidence as we won 10-2 in our first match against an energetic Bristol University side. We followed this with a 16-3 win against Bristol City 2 to top our group and secure some tough afternoon matches. 

I also shared glove tips with a girl who suffers similar finger troubles (see any of my other blog posts!). Honestly, this time next year everyone will be wearing them…

But even a pair of magic gloves wouldn’t have helped in our next match, against southwest regional champions Bristol Thunder and their team that includes several internationals. We managed to score two but were well beaten, to leave us looking at a best finish of 5th.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be as we suffered our most disappointing result of the day: a 5-4 loss to Cardiff Celts despite leading for most of the match. I know I learnt a big lesson: focus on the fundamentals and don’t try to rush things, especially when you’re in the lead.

We bounced back in our final match with a 7-6 win against Cardiff University, to finish 7th out of 14 overall, and headed home with aching bodies but heads high.

On Sunday, the bravest of us turned out at St Greg’s for the first weekend of the new OKA season for two matches against local rivals Isis. 

First, City 3 (aka ‘Team Awesome’) played Isis 2 and rushed into a three-goal lead, with a lead of 5-3 at half time, including a great debut goal from Theo.

The second half was more cagey with little ball-in-hoop action. I know I was feeling the effects of the Bristol tournament as my attacks could at best be called ‘glacial’. Even so, we kept calm, kept finding space, kept putting shots up — and kept missing them! But solid defence from Andy, Captain Blaze, Laura and Niall saw us to a 6-4 win.

And then City 1 played Isis 1. I know we won 12-6, but don’t know anything else about the match because I sloped off home to see my daughter. After a weekend of korfball, it was a relief to spend some time chasing around after something that isn’t purple and yellow.

- Rich Heap, web editor