Team in Profile: Chevron Action Flash

Each week from now on I will feature a team detailing achivements, history and trivia. I also hope to include interviews with players in the future. This weeks 'team in profile' is Chevron Action Flash, current holders of the UK Tour title. I've tried to be as accurate as possible but if you see any incorrect facts please let me know.

We are Chevron, we are Chevron, super Chevron, from Brazil, we are Chevron, super Chevron, we are Chevron and we're skill (The Chevron song, sung to the tune of 'Sailing' by Rod Stewart).

Manchester based Chevron Action Flash commonly known as Chevvy are one of the top British Ultimate clubs, with teams competing in both Open and Mixed divisions of the UK Tour and National events.
The team officially formed in 1995 as a graduate team for ex ‘Fingers 6’ (Manchester Met Uni) players.

Chevron Action Flash at Open Tour 3 in Mansfield (courtesy of Roland Tomlinson of BU: See http://snowspeeder.co.uk/ultimate/)

Since then Chevron have consistently finished as a top 5 team in the UK Tour, claiming five Tour event wins along the way, but never, until 2008 that is, winning the Tour outright. After chasing the title for over a decade Chevron finally managed to capture the elusive Ben Rainbow Trophy with three fine performances. Finishing as the loosing finalists to Clapham at Tour 1 in Bristol; Winning Tour 2 with a tight sudden death (universe point) victory against Fire in Cardiff; and securing their place in history with a dominant win over Clapham for the 3rd place at Tour 3 in Mansfield. Chevron have yet to show their true colours on the international club scene, their highest European finish, a somewhat disappointing 8th at EUCF in 2008.
Chevron have also had success in the mixed division winning mixed nationals in 2000 and finishing 2nd overall in Mixed Tour 2007. They are currently battling to win the 2008 Tour title, finishing 1st at Mixed tour 1 in Brighton and 2nd at Mixed tour 2 in Burton-on-Trent. The deciding Tour will be held next weekend in Birmingham.
The current Chevron Open side has a great mix of experience and youth with plenty of GB junior players drafted in for the 2008 season. Their squad is large in comparison with other top British teams and this certainly seemed to play to their advantage at times during Tour this year. Several Chevron players will be travelling with the GB Open team to Vancouver (WUGC) this summer. Stars include Matt Beavan, Dave Grayson and the dominant Stu Mitchell. After Vancouver Chevron will be looking to complete the season with high place finishes at Open and Mixed UK Nationals and EUCFs. Now stronger than ever before, I have no doubt that Chevron Action Flash will continue to feature at the very highest level of British and European Ultimate.

For more information on Chevron Action Flash see their website.

Mixed Tour 2, O & D lines?

This past weekend I enjoyed a fantastic couple of days playing for Flump at Mixed Tour 2 in Burton-on-Trent (results here). We had a great team – not only quality players but a really fun group of people. I think the rapport within the team really helped us achieve a good standard despite a severe lack of practice / preparation.

Flump on the line (courtesy of Dr Hird)

Props to Blockstack TV who put on an unexpected party on the Saturday night. It really added to the weekend for me and from lots of other people I’ve spoken to. I was less impressed by the Marston’s Pedigree (beer brewed next to the fields) – it still tasted a bit like eggs.
So, to the point of this blog. Something I noticed playing with Flump this weekend and also with Brighton at Open Tour 0. We had a lot of guys down to play (10) and none of them were ‘droppable’. Our captain had the smart idea to split them into O & D lines. On the surface this seems to be a good way to get people lots of people playing well together quickly, however I got the feeling that things were a little disjointed on the Saturday. Unfortunately we lost two of our best players to injury and I was a bit worried on the Saturday night. We went out on the Sunday morning a little hung-over but more ‘streamlined’ as a team. The decrease in numbers seemed to have benefited us as we played a more fluid, comfortable style. We won our cross-over well and continued to play similarly throughout the day.
I recall a similar thing happened whilst playing for Brighton at tour 0 playing. We scraped through the first day playing set O and D lines, mixed things up for day two and won the tournament.
Whilst I’m sure offensive and defensive lines can be invaluable when used for large teams who practice very regularly have a depth of quality I feel that they should be used with caution. At lower levels ie. UK university, or B-tour its probably more sensible to be flexible, calling lines in response to the situation at hand. Trying to force people onto O & D lines may end up keeping valuable players off the field when you need them most. Saying that I think flexibility within a squad can provide a great advantage at all levels; lines should never be set in stone.

University / College Ultimate Comparisons

Last weekend UK Open University Nationals took place in York. My team, Thrown (King's College London) were competing in the second division. To my dismay I couldn't play due to this shitty shoulder injury. However the team did fine (if not better) without me, finishing a respectable 8th, or 24th overall in the UK (a report by our very able president, Adnan can be found here http://www.thrownultimate.com/uno2008/) . The eventual champions were Cardiff 'No Frills' who beat Cambridge 'Strange Blue' in the final.

Thrown at UK Uni Nationals (Courtesy of Eric Dahl aka Fingers)

Most seasons we (Thrown) are lucky enough to get a couple of US college players over on exchange programs. This year was no exception and our two star additions, Eric and Jesse really embraced the club and helped out no end. One of things I'm always asking them is: "How do the good British teams compare with the US teams?". The feeling I get from the replies is that the British teams would probably do alright at regionals but would not be good enough to qualify for nationals. I suppose this isn't all that surprising considering the quality of UK ultimate in general.
But I do think that university / college ultimate could prove to be an area where British teams could raise their games and provide a level of ultimate closer to that of their American counterparts. Essentially the pool of talent available to a Uni team in the UK is comparable to that of a College team in the states. Therefore a uni with a really good program could, with a little bit of luck, potentially produce a US nationals standard side. From what I've heard some of the Japanese Uni teams are playing at a decent level too (taking several points of Sockeye at Dream cup is quite an achievement).
Obviously there are other factors to take into consideration: previous playing experience is a big one; There are about 15 British secondary schools with ultimate teams compared with a huge number of American high schools. Publicity / popularity is another factor; In the the UK virtually no one out-side of University and the ultimate scene itself actually knows what ultimate is. Obviously this can be a massive problem when recruiting players for teams.
I would love to see the UKUA and the UK ultimate community put more emphasis on the Uni scene. University ultimate get quite a lot of stick about how rubbish it is in the UK - It seems pretty self destructive if you ask me. University is the place where most people start playing, it is the future of the sport! Hopefully over the coming years some UK programmes will really get there acts together. It would be fantastic to see a UK Uni team play at one of the big US college tournaments like Centex and do well.

Thrown set off for another point at natties (Once again courtesy of Eric Dahl)

Ultimate Blogging and Tour 3

Okay, so I'm in the middle of my exams and thought I'd waste a bit of time setting up a blog. There are some really great ultimate blogs out there, and with ultimate being one of my primary focuses in life I thought it might be fun to have a go myself.

Being based in the UK, I suppose I'll mainly be blogging on topics relating to UK ultimate. Although I may explore my ignorance of ultimate scenes further afield, ie North America.

Right now tour 3 is taking place in Mansfield, and believe it or not the weather is fine! Unfortunately I'm unable to partake in this rare event, being stuck at home with a gamee shoulder and a Protein Structure and Function text book.
Once again this year the UK Open tour is quite tight at the top. But once again Clapham, the European champs do seem to have a fairly good edge over the competition. After an exciting clapham-less final at T1 the status-quo was resumed at T2 where a full strength Clapham 1 side pretty much rolled over Chevron in the final. Clapham have also done a pretty good job of securing future talent this season, hoovering up a host of young players from London, former BUF (Oxford Brooks uni) star Justin is a prime example. With a decent development program and consistent results, how long this dominance will continue I don't know, but I have a feeling that a changing of the guard would usher in a new chapter in UK ultimate. From a competitive ultimate fans point of view I'd like to see it all get mixed up, with more strength and depth overall!

My predictions for this weekend: Iceni will dominate Womens tour again, I doubt their blip at T1 will be repeated this year. Fire 2 will probably win B tour and complete their bouncy castle tour season. And Clapham 1 will wrap up a dominant T3 with a win over Fire 1 in the final (although I would great to see Fusion make resurgence).

Not groundbreaking stuff, but its a start. Hopefully I'll have some better insights when I next decide to ramble.