Hello again!

Well once more, I have been asked to sum up what happened to our glorious team at the weekend.

Actually it all started in an airport, sorry not one airport but five airport across Europe. Lets see now if I remember correctly INIGO!!!, Ralf, Luis, Jens, Glad, Krasi, Signe, Piotr, Pablo, Stuart and me left from Manchester. Further down south Ditte and Helge left from London. In the basque country Asier said goodbye to his mother, father and sister and took a plane from Bilbao. After a last dip in his parents pool Seb headed for Nice Airport. And finally in Scandinavia Thomas and Magnus boarded their plane in Copenhagen. During the flight from Manchester Krasi the entertainment officer conducted a quiz to which the results are still a mystery.

Of course the idea was to meet up all together in Belgrade, where Metaloplastika would have a bus and our great guide Ivan waiting for us. Unfortunately it did not work according to the plan. Ditte and Helge decided to spend a romantic evening in Milan (to Magnus' and Tone's discontent) and Seb decided to do a Thomas and forget to renew his passport. Fortunately the three arrived the next morning.

When we arrived at the airport there was much hugging and many pats on the backs has some of us had not seen each other for several months. We then boarded a bus and headed towards Sabac, we checked in the Hotel Dvor and had the first of many wonderful meals.

That evening we all went for a couple of beers and suffered our first injuries Jens and Glad cut their fingers open whilst attempting to open a bottle of Lav. After we all had a few beers we headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. Fortunately Piotr had is own room which means that none were disturbed by his incredible snoring.

In the morning we awoke to a feast of a breakfast, there was so much choice I didn't know where to start. Then we made our way like professional players to training using no less than four taxis to travel a distance which we would have covered on foot in 15 minutes.

The practice went well and consisted mainly of us getting used to play with each other again. Glad and Stuart practiced fast breaks with the stats coach Krasi. Meanwhile I sat on the bench and enjoyed a few bananas. After the training, whilst on a cigarette break, Luis met the Metaloplastika coach and spent quite some time talking to him in Spanish, turns out he played in Spain for 5 years! He was surprised to hear we had not one professional or semi-professional player in our team. We then returned to the hotel and some rested while others went to explore the city.

At 5 o'clock we all met in the dinning room for a team speech and for the handing out of our wonderful new kit. It was a great moment for all the players, only spoilt by the spelling mistake on a few shirts, hehe (hey Helge) and obviously by the fact that I didn't get one! I always get left out!!

Here's Ralf match report:

"The first match on Friday against the host Metaloplastika Sabac was to set the tone. The University team attempted to nullify the host’s technical, tactical and skill advantage with fighting spirit. While the latter was not sufficient to keep the result on level terms, it clearly convinced the crowd of the value of having a team from a Handball “Developing” Nation in the tournament. Furthermore the Manchester goalkeeper Glad, delivered arguably the best individual performance of the weekend by repeatedly denying the Serbian attackers from clear goal-scoring positions leaving the final result at a very respectable 17:34. "

Now my memories are a bit confused as to what happened after that I remember us going back to the hotel for some dinner and that we went for a couple of drinks at our local. But then I believe some members of the team went a little crazy!! All I know is that around five o'clock in the morning I got woken up by some heavy knocking on my door, Stuart woke up and opened the door and a crazy Frenchman entered the room obviously under the influence of quite a bit of alcohol and proceeded to jump on Helge and Jens while they were sleeping and then swore in French before Stuart eventually kicked him out!

On the second day we just walked around town, went for an ice cream while we were waiting for our game and once again here's Ralf's match report:

"Saturday’s match against TJ START Nove Zamky started with the Slovakians coming out intend on scoring a record number of goals. Indeed, after 8 minutes the scoreline read a devastating 0:7 and it took one inspired time-out talk from coach Magnus Selsing to lift the spirits of the English team. And this is what he told us:

"They may be stronger than us, they may be faster then us, they may play better handball than us, but they can't DRINK more than us!!!!!"

Slowly Manchester regained their composure and despite the best efforts of their opponents Manchester again managed to keep the final score to 17:34, just as on the previous day. "

That night everyone was too tired to do anything so we just went for a quiet drink and went straight to bed!

The next morning we woke up early for our final game of the weekend, there you go Ralf tell it how it happened:

"The effort of the Saturday match was enormous, and with only 12 hours to the final match against Ljubuski, a Bosnian team with mainly Croatian players, it was always likely that the University team was to pay a heavy toll on Sunday. With several key players being limited to short spells on the court it was mainly the right back Inigo Eugui and line player Thomas Pedersen who urged their team-mates to stem the tide. The game ended with a score of 13:31 but more importantly with spectators and competitors alike appreciating the effort by the University of Manchester team.

The remainder of the Sunday was used to nurse several small injuries before having dinner and sharing celebrations with members of the Metaloplastika club. The people of Sabac in general and the Metaloplastika club in particular were wonderful hosts and enabled the entire squad to have a memorable weekend in this legendary Handball town. Speaking of Legends, upon arrival everyone would let us know of their admiration for Sir Alex Ferguson and Nemanja Vidic. By Sunday night that talk was replaced by admiration for the performances by Stuart Hawkins, Jens Jensen and other outstanding performers in the Manchester team. At least for a few days their uniforms will be as treasured as those of Vidic and Ronaldo. While this may not last, the memories of our achievement will."

After that game the real celebrations started we all went out for some drinkS and there were plenty!! It started in the hotel early for some and continued in a really nice restaurant, despite our best efforts we were unable to get Ivan drunk enough!!!

But we all got very drunk and when Jens entered the club we went too we heard some beautiful "JENSEN JENSEN JENSEN" chants from the locals! Was an extraordinary night and a wonderful trip

So a big thanks to IVAN and to all the people at METALOPLASTIKA
 

 

Two great keepers	Two fun teams	Magnus becoming a super star