Millennium Series2012 – Round 2 – “European Masters”

“Bitte ein Bit” is the slogan of the local beer they brew in town – yes we are talking Bitburg, second round of the series, aka. the "European Masters".

Following a great journey via EuroTunnel and some Autobahn we arrived at our destination early Thursday,  got our rooms and gear sorted and enjoyed some rays of sun combined with German beer and food.


Besides playing paintball this weekend there was also a “planned scheduled” stag due, since Mark – our youngest, decided to get married (although we did suggest an alternative – even a get-away car behind the church) … his mind was set, so we wanted to make sure he had a "last good weekend" as well. :D

But down to business …

Saturday:

Division 3 prelims Saturday were again early for us – first group, first game – so a bit of a “wake up call” on every behalf. We got caught out on the first point against the Argonauts Hellas Athens 2, because we had a team huddle off the field and didn’t get to the gate until 1 second before start (a coach with an eye on the clock calling a time out, which we are missing – or the reffs raising their arms – would have been “useful”, however let’s just drop this as a “beginners mistake”).

So the day didn’t start to our favor really ... However -  the 2:1 slap in the face (which has been a Samurai MV tradition in the past years) woke us up quick and we turned the engine on which resulted in 3 consecutive victories and placing ourselves in a good chance for Sunday Club. None of the games were easy games - but we became more and more confident as the games started, that even with 2 “1-4-1”s, which we still don’t understand today – we managed to pull it off.

Preliminaries	Argonauts Hellas Athens 2	2:1	London Samurai MV
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	2:0	Glory Skulls Dorsten 2
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	2:1	Izmir Collision 2
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	2:1	B4 Paris

 

 

 

 

Dynasty/Impact

Franfurt Syndicate

After our Paintball task of the day was done - we started turning our attention back to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust – Collection. Again our sponsors put up some of the collection pots on their stands and we had Flyers in English and this time German (who would have thought) for the spectators. However the highlight was that we got pros (Team Dynasty/Impact, Team Frankfurt Syndicate and the guys from HKArmy)to sign our flyers – and Dynasty/Impact gave us 2 lenses the team had signed that we could then auction off – A big thank you again here to them all!!!

HK Army

 

Yorkie, the heart and soul of Bricket Wood Paintball, who again was on tour with London Relentless (Div 2) was about and was glad that we had 3 wins in day one. London Nexus (CPL) and London Tigers (SPL) both didn’t make it to Sunday club, not to mention that besides London Relentless no other team playing Div2 or higher made it to Sunday. So Div 3 with London Impact, London Fearless, Banshees, Ipswich Unwanted and us had to see what we could do to hold up the UK paintball scene on German soil.

Sunday

Advantage of playing the first game Saturday – results in a “playing the last game Sunday”, so we enjoyed the sun and day until about noon, when we got our gear ready and walked to the field and got our paint sorted. The GI Sports boys and girls delivered the 5* goods that day that we just couldn’t turn down (we were shooting 4 star all events before) and with this we turned our Back Center player Ped into a 5* addict ever since … “They are like laser” he gasped, and we know he can shoot lanes, but that was just ridiculous on Sunday … however, back to the games.

We finished losing our last Prelim game 2:1 to a German team, however that 1 point was all we needed to make to Sunday Club – and we almost flipped. 2^nd Millennium Series and Sunday Club, we couldn’t believe it, however the excitement had a bitter aftertaste once we realized that we were going to play the only other UK team that made it to the last 16 with us – London Impact. It’s never nice to have a game against a fellow UK team so early in the knock out stages, but we shook hands and wished each other luck – exactly how it should be done.

From this point on we felt that the reffs took over the “game results” with a huge amount of penalties.

London Impact lost 3 players off the break and in the first point, to then lose 4 off the break in the second and we were through to the last 8.

 

The following and also last game of the day was against Maxs Family Frankfurt 2. We started off trying to get to our primaries and teams that were through to the next round were watching our breakout closely. So with 5 alive in our bunkers and locking down the snake side we suddenly started losing bodies fast. Two 1-4-1’s for hits that were not there, which I guess threw us off so much that the 2^nd point was no surprise that we lost our entire snake side (again a penalty – very doubtful one as well) and then things just going very bad.

Following the game the Brazilian team that was watching our breakouts (since they were convinced we would be playing them in the semi-final) came into our pits and said that they watched the games and the two initial 1-4-1’s were uncalled for (one person was actually not even HIT when called out and penalized) … fair play to them, we thought we were going crazy, but later in the bar we heard of similar stories on our field. So the referee situation still has some “developemt” needs it seems … in short:

Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	1:2	Rebirth Berlin
Last 16	London Impact	0:2	London Samurai MV
Quarter-Finals	Maxs Family Frankfurt 2	2:0	London Samurai MV

You can say what you want – we were proud of ourselves. For a first year as a race-to team making Sunday Club on our second event – top UK team in our division-yeah, we can live with that. =)

Closing the European Masters chapter … Stag dues, sun burns, flipping beer mats, men in knickers & Stickers on the Autobahn ...

 

Well who didn’t yet realize we are a bit of a “crazy” bunch, we did mention a stag due – and the man normally doesn’t drink AT ALL, so us getting him to drink vodka orange and german “mini shots” known as Feigling, Apfelkorn and Ficken (yes, it means "F**K?" in German; the guy behind the bar, when asking for shots “Willst Du Ficken?” - which means “Do you want to F**K?” freaked me the "F" out – he just laughed when he saw my face and after he explained it was the drink and not the act he was offering I was VERY RELIEVED … but besides that what goes on tour/stays on tour! =D

 

 

Next morning, Monday, we had a breakfast with the remaining teams that stayed overnight (Art Chaos surprisingly still were although they didn’t pick up their trophy from the ceremony the evening before … we can only guess and wonder why), started heading back to London.

 

Due to some traffic jam’s 2 of our boys decided to STICKER the Autobahn a bit. Nobody got hurt – nothing got damaged – but there was a lot of tears of laughter and a great time with theboys came to an end … until June/July when the CPPS and London Master are up.

We can’t wait to show the home crowd what we got in Basildon. See you all in Our Kingdom!

P.S.: We are still taking donations for our charity activities: www.justgiving.com/samuraimv2012