Dundee Day goes international…

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Nigel Cooper

Sunday, May 25, 2014: Dundee Day, year 3 – the year that it went truly international, and rained. But only enough to soak the people who got there ahead of time. Thankfully, most of the clouds seemed to dry up by the time we got to the second round of games. A few of them even parted later in the day, leaving the final few rounds to be played in (glorious?) sunshine. There was some good korfball on display too, especially once the balls had dried out a little and the players managed to adapt to the courts and conditions.

This was to be a record breaking event in many senses: it was the first time that it had rained in Dundee, ever (honest). It was the biggest Dundee Day in the club’s short but glorious history, with a total of twelve teams from eight different clubs. And it was the first time that the event had attracted any truly international competitors, with KC Terda’s team trundling all the way over from Breda in Holland just to return Dundee’s compliments (after DKC brought their first silverware home from Etten Leur last Summer). And we made sure that our visitors didn’t go home empty handed, of course. 🙂

The most important points for me to summarise here are (i) a bunch of heartfelt thank-you’s, and (ii) the final results from a very enjoyable and eventful day (literally).

So, here are the final standings (full results are at the end of this article):

KC Terda (unbeaten all day long)
Edinburgh University 2
Edinburgh City
Ligers (Lancaster alumni)
St. Andrews University
Edinburgh University 1
Dundee Dragons
Lancaster University 1
Northern Storm (based around Tyneside)
Glasgow
Dundee Crocodiles
Lancaster University 2 (losing out only on their head to head with the Crocs)

And a few of the many thank-you’s that are owed:

To 12 teams of superstars, for showing up and playing in such good spirits throughout the day. Particular mentions here for the two clubs travelling all the way up from England: Northern Storm (looking very strong, despite being only 1 year old!) and Lancaster Uni (a very impressive 3 teams strong, including their team of alumni Ligers).
To KC Terda, who not only travelled all the way from Holland, but even presented Dundee with a brand-new, signed-by-everyone, korfball. We shall treasure that. 🙂
To Lucie Maupetit, from Edinburgh City, for graciously accepting our last-minute request to manage the results desk, for keeping everyone calm, and for keeping the whole day running to schedule.
To the fantastic bunch of people that make up and hang around Dundee Korfball Club, for mucking in throughout the day and making it into success. Particular mentions here must go to:
- Erwin, for owning a tow-bar, for being on-time at a moment of considerable stress, and for ferrying various people to various places at various point in the day.
- Mary, for being everywhere and doing everything, always.
- Ross, Paul, Alan, Jake, Emely, Lauren, the two Carolines and everyone else for bringing equipment and being there nice and early to help to get the tents and signposts etc. set up in the early morning drizzle.
- Chris, Andy and Fiona for helping Erwin with the shuttle-bus runs.
- Rosie and Hamish Lloyd, for kidding the tuck-shop all day long, and for only blowing the air-horn at appropriate times!
- Steven, for magically sorting out some recycling bins for all the rubbish that we generated.
- Caroline S, for sorting out the press photographer, and generally looking happy.
- Caroline C, for ‘rousing the crowd with her perfectly timed arrival for the group photo. And then making the Gazebo take off.
- Philippa, for being the newest kid on the block – 7 straight games playing as a guest for Ed City looked like quite an introduction to Scottish korfball.
- Nicola, for being our second-newest recruit, and guesting for the Crocs from the fledgling Perth Korfball Club.
- Eleanor, for traipsing 4 sets of pitch tapes all the way up from Crewe & Nantwich, and once again helping out Dundee’s highest placed team (the mighty Dragons).
- Lauren, Fiona, Terri, and both Carolines for manning the BBQ and food stalls, and baking their hearts out beforehand.

Full results:

Pool A (20 minute games)
Terda	1-0	Dragons
Ligers	0-8	Terda
Terda	9-1	Glasgow
EdUni1	0-3	Terda
Terda	5-0	Lanc2
Lanc2	1-2	Ligers
Dragons	1-1	Glasgow
Ligers	3-1	EdUni1
Glasgow	4-1	Lanc2
Dragons	0-3	EdUni1
EdUni1	3-2	Glasgow
Lanc2	1-2	EdUni1
Lanc2	1-3	Dragons
Ligers	1-0	Dragons
Glasgow	0-2	Ligers
Pool B (20 minute games)
Storm	2-1	Crocs
Saints	6-1	Storm
Storm	1-2	EdCity
EdUni2	2-1	Storm
Storm	1-5	Lanc1
Lanc1	0-1	Saints
Crocs	1-5	EdCity
Saints	1-2	EdUni2
EdCity	3-1	Lanc1
Crocs	1-5	EdUni2
EdUni2	1-2	EdCity
Lanc1	1-3	EdUni2
Lanc1	4-1	Crocs
Saints	1-2	Crocs
EdCity	2-3	Saints
Places 1-4 (30 minute games)
Terda	7-3	Ed Uni 2
Ligers	4-2	Ed City
Ed Uni 2	3-1	Ligers
Ed City	0-6	Terda
Places 5-8 (30 minute games)
Ed Uni 1	3-1	Lanc 1
Dragons	7-6	Saints
Lanc 1	3-4	Dragons
Saints	5-2	Ed Uni 1
Places 9-12 (30 minute games)
Glasgow	4-0	Crocs
Lanc 2	7-3	Storm
Crocs	3-2	Lanc 2
Storm	5-0*	Glasgow

Training on April 3rd cancelled

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Nigel Cooper

There will be no training on April 3, 2014: Ardler’s Sports Hall is being used for a major event from April 3 – April 6. Sorry folks.

Also, there will be no training for juniors at Ardler on either April 10th or April 17th, cos those are School holiday weeks and numbers look like they’re going to be too low to make those sessions worthwhile – sorry! (I promise that I shall use the time to re-Cooper-ate as the kids’ coach). So we’ll hope to see all the kids back on Thursday, April 24th.

Blairgowrie’s Sports Relief Korfball Challenge

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Nigel Cooper

Erwin Oosterhoorn is aiming to raise £100 for Sports Relief this weekend: He’s set his kids the challenge of scoring 300 korfs in one hour at their Saturday morning training session. Help him to acheive this by sponsoring them at: http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/Blairgowrie-Korfball-Challenge

Skills Awards for Dundee’s Youngsters

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Nigel Cooper

DKC's youth players receive their Level 1 Skills Awards (23/12/2013)

DKC’s youth players receive their Level 1 Skills Awards (19/12/2013)

Christmas came early for ten young members of Dundee Korfball Club, who received their SKA Level 1 Korfball Skills Awards on December 19, 2013. Some of the club’s youngsters have been playing regularly for the past 18 months – that’s longer than many of our adult players – and have stuck with the sport through thick and thin – with record highs and lows in the youth section’s attendance figures of 10 and 1!

To earn their awards, each player has successfully demonstrated all of the basic skills of korfball over a time course of several weeks to several months. The skills tested include passing and catching, marking and evading, shooting, defending, taking support positions and playing as part of a team. They also had to demonstrate good sporting behaviour, and generally help the coaches to run each session smoothly. Not all of the players can do all of these things perfectly all of the time, of course, but their coaches will be working to improve on that, and build them up to Level 2 in the future.

Coaches for the club

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Erwin

New Coaches for the club?

Last week-end several members of the club attended a coaching course in Glasgow. Michael, Paul, Caroline Chris and Erwin all went to Glasgow for a full day of instructions and practices. Joined by several others from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle and Oban there was a right mix in experience and years played, one was so brave to attend even that she had never played before, well done.
The course was organised by our own coach Nigel with Mary, and they had Graham Box over to lead the course. I think that I can speak for all that the course was very well organised and enjoyed by all. The day started at 10:00, a break in the middle for some food and ended at 17:00. I have to say I can feel my muscles today (Monday 2-12) and I am glad the training is not until Thursday. All that attended have to lead a session to show that we have been listening and have taken on board all the material covered during the day before we can call ourselves qualified level 1 coaches, but I think that we are all up for that.
So, what does that mean for the training sessions? I think this means that we can look forward to different coaches taking sessions, with different approaches and styles with different techniques getting the focus. Exciting times.

So, bring along your friends that have been telling you all along that they should start doing some exercise. Dundee korfball is getting better and better.

Erwin

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Nigel is 50!

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Erwin

Last Saturday there was a tournement to celebrate the birthday of Nigel Cooper. He had his birthday during our training session and realised Saterday afternoon why he was completely ignored and no-one congratulated him. This was all forgotten when he entered the hall at the Grove Academy where he was greeted by almost the full team and a team from Glagow to held a mini tournement in his honour. The day was followed by a drink and a meal at the Indian where he received a birthday cake in the shape of a (korf)ball.
Nigel, Congratulations…

DKC’s trip to the Netherlands

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Nigel Cooper

August 23-26, 2013: Nine players from Dundee Korfball Club trundled over to the Netherlands this weekend to play in a friendly tournament at Etten Leur. It was Etten-Leur’s 40th anniversary tournament, and a real eye-opener for most of our players, with over 60 teams coming together from all over the place (Holland, Belgium and Scotland!) to play in a single event. Most of the teams were juniors, ranging in age from about 5 to 18, but there were also at least 20 adult teams, ranging from recreational (that was us!) to “competitive”. There was certainly a lot of talent on show, anway.

On the Friday night, Dundee were invited over to train with a bunch of young players from Roosendaal korfball club, where Emely Paul comes from (Emely was our tenth player, and our official translator for the weekend – many thanks for all your efforts, Emely!). Roosendaal’s team included Emely’s “little” brother and sister, both of whom were taller than most of our home-grown players, despite still being just teenagers!). Dundee played their usual mix of organised chaos, but gave the young guns a good run around before being sent on our way with what sounded like a farewell chant of “How-do” – is this Dutch for tatty-bye, Emely? Then it was back off to the hotel in Etten Leur for a welcome night’s sleep.

Saturday morning started with a traditional “international” breakfast, including lots of croissants, pain-au-chocolat, and tasty pastries from the local “Turkish bakery” (well found, Terri), plus the obligatory cup of coffee and fresh orange juice from the hotel bar. Then it was off to the tournament itself: in our case, as part of a 5-team recreational competition with Etten Leur (who beat us 4-0), Keep Fit (a bunch of more mature players from the Roosendaal club, who beat us 4-0), Terda (a Belgian team that we just scraped a 2-1 win from), and Appels “olds” (another “mature” Belgian team that we beat 2-0). Despite only winning 2 games, and ending up with a goal difference of minus 5, Dundee actually won it’s FIRST EVER silverware in this competition. That wasn’t too hard, as I think almost everyone went home with a trophy, but the fact that it was for SECOND PLACE was a real shock to everyone. Jake (my eldest son, guesting for Dundee for the weekend) eventually convinced us that this was the correct result though, because several teams probably ended up tied on points at the end of the day, and the final rankings were decided on head-to-head results, with our two victories over the Belgian teams proving decisive.

On Sunday we were (thankfully!) entered in the lowest of 5 pools, and were again scheduled to play against ELKV and 2 Belgian teams (AKC and Ekerse). We were all expecting our opponents to be much stronger than the day before, and (truthfully) to get tonked in every game, especually when we saw the level of the competition in the other pools. Our worries began to subside once our first game got underway though, with the team finally starting to find it’s shooting boots and coming out with a very respectable 4-4 draw with ELKV 1. The second game was much tougher, but ended with an even better result. And by tougher, I really mean tougher: AKC 1 had a couple of extremely physical players (both male and female), and sadly in the end our innocent by-stander, Fiona, ended up getting badly winded (and unable to continue playing) when AKC’s biggest boy clashed pretty violently with Paul. The ref was right to give a penalty decision against Paul in this instance (cos that’s what the AKC guy was playing for), but as we were winning the game by just one goal at that point, and it was virtually the last minute of the match, we were all a bit gutted (Fiona quite lirterally). As fate would have it though, the Belgian guy unexpectedly missed his penalty, so the ref then blew his whistle for full time, and we ended up winning the game by 5 goals to 4. Our final match of the pool-stage was a much cleaner game against a really nice Belgian side from Ekerse. With Fiona now out, we had to play this with just 7 players (our opponents kindly agreed to play with 7 too, to make the match a bit fairer), but we probably had our best game of the tournament: six out of our seven players ended up scoring, and we came out on top by 8-3. And so we finished the day at the top of our pool, and were drawn in the final up against AKC1 again!

The final was a memorable affair for everyone involved. Thanks to Emely, we managed to scrounge a couple of ELKV girls (Marie-Louise & Marianne) to stand in and play two halves for Fiona. The Dutch girls helped us to maintain a little bit of discipline and order to our attacks, despite what was really quite a chaotic game – we would have been severely punished if we’d been forced to play with one player short. The discipline proved to be vital, as AKC came into this game in very much the same manner that they’d finished their previous one with us. One of their players was having a real tantrum right from the start, complaining that we were playing dirty and that the ref was on our side, but to be honest, that’s definitely not the way that anybody else saw it. The ref was a very experienced guy from ELKV, and he did all that he could to keep this guy under control (without sending him off). In truth, the only thing that the guy’s mis-behaviour did was to disrupt his own team’s play. I was really, really proud of all the Dundonians (natives and guests alike) for keeping calm and “just playing korfball”, because that was all that we needed to do to come out as comfortable winners of this game. And winning the game (final score 5-2) was all that we needed to do to WIN ANOTHER TROPHY – Dundee’s first ever FIRST PLACE in a competition! Whooopeeeeeee!

Oh, and then we went back to our hotel, and slept very, very, soundly. Or am I imagining that bit? 🙂

Results & Dundee’s scorers:

Saturday….
ELKV 4-0 DKC
Keep Fit 4-0 DKC
DKC 2-1 Terda (Steven, 1P; Terri, 1)
DKC 2-0 Appels (Jake, 1; Mary, 1)

Sunday…
ELKV 4-4 DKC (Jake, 2; Nigel, 1; Paul, 1)
AKC 4-5 DKC (Alan,1; Fiona, 1; Jake, 1; Mary, 2)
DKC 8-3 Ekerse (Jake, 2; Mary, 2; Chris, 1; Paul, 1; Nigel, 1; Emely, 1)

Final: DKC 5-2 AKC (Mary, 2; Emely, 2; Jake, 1)