Cheerio old beans, the following report provides some capital insights into the splendid tournament that was the Ultimate Evolution Spirit In Disguise tournament.

The tournament was a wonderful day chock full of games, olympics, and merriment. The preparation that went into this event was spectacular, allowing it to run as smoothly as a schooner with a pleasant tail wind. As our club was organising the event, a large contingent of the UE club arrived at the CBC Ovals by 8am to help set up shades, fields, food, and drink supplies. This was a wonderfully unified effort, and set up the rest of the day for the aforementioned smooth sailing.

By the time 9am rolled around teams had assembled, and begun having a few warmup throws, all in the various finery of the day. The teams were as follows:

Le Pelaton: A collection of Flycatchers robed in cycling gear, some going so far as to wear helmets onto the field (though it was not stated whether this was part of the costume, or more a fear of discs to the head).
Bedtime Layout: A collection of UE players dressed in naught but their pyjamas (although one hopes they were decently dressed should their PJs become dislodged).
Hawaii: Da Frizz dressed to the nines as Hawaiian Kahunas and Wahines.
Fear Discinsonia: Old Geezers practicing for the Masters later this year. They were the only non-mixed team (a concession to their training) and also had imports from WA who performed superbly. They were dressed as some sort of bizarre Santa-Christmas tree hybrid.
Wife beaters: A bunch of players dressed in, you guessed it, wife beaters and classic bogan garb. They had the audacity to drink during games, and provide cheers that I’m sure Australia would say ‘No’ to.
The Lower Crust: The classiest of the classy. Dressed as English Gentry from the 19th Century in top-hats and tuxedo shirts (though some wore actual suits with tails to begin with, our team clearly had the most class, reduced only by our love of the smack, and the tallest hats. If you ask anyone about the size of K’s hat, they could favourably compare it to empire State Building. )

A wonderful effort was put in to organise the fitting opening ceremony for the tournament and its Disc Olympics component, with Ali Manning running in with the Torch, igniting a disc that was hammered in by John Salerno to the waiting cauldron of fire. If it sounds like the fire was real and the process went off without a hitch you’d be slightly mistaken. There’s no way we’d be so careless as to attempt setting things on fire on a warm day during a drought, and John's Herculean hammer fell agonizingly short of the mark. The effect was still fantastic though.

The captains were assembled for a briefing from Pete Williams (one of many tournament organisers) and the rules and details were laid down. Captains packs, and care parcels were handed out to make sure the teams had nutrition, information, and score sheets ready for the rest of the day. A brief delay ensued while Bedtime decided whether they should, or should not, merge with The Lower Crust due to their being short by a player. In the end, after a new draw had been created, they went the heroic option of playing with 6 and having everyone go savage the entire day.

Then the games began. Round 1 saw The Lower Crust take on Le Peleton in a good humoured and well spirited match. The other match was Wife beaters and Hawaii (from memory), with Bedtime and Fear Discinsonia taking to the Disc Olympics range to test their accuracy and distance. Joel Pillar seems to have starred in those components, there’s not to much he can’t do. The Lower crust match was interesting, we had no subs, and we went hard. There were some spectacular moments with Westy laying out to try and control a disc he’d just gotten a finger on, Sando, Chris, and K starting in their full livery (though K was not wearing the hat that stopped a (Frisbee) nation). It became apparent early on that the suits were slowing down these three and a gradual shift to more suitable clothing and the tuxedo shirt were required. That and the poor choices, and poor skill errors that crept, nay pounced, into our game left us trailing at 4-0. We kept going and eventually got some points. Unfortunately the game didn’t go our way and we were humbled by these speed cyclists 10-5. “On ya bike” was definitely the message we were getting from this match as Dutchie, Duncs, Matt, Bron, Huy, and the others showed that they showed up to not only win, but to decimate. This plan backfired on them later in the day, something that’ll be explained in due time.

With our legs between our suit tails we took the result in stride and ambulated down to the Olympics range to see if we could redeem ourselves in our “second round”. The accuracy component, with some windy interference, was not a confidence booster for most. I personally managed the big donut for my score, and I was (unfortunately) not alone. While we’re talking of the accuracy work, I’d like to take a moment to congratulate K on his awesome target. Though it suffered an early breakage in one of the supports, it remained functional, and was an important part of the day. The distance component of the Olympics was our chance to shine, though we had to wait a few moment for Hawaii to finish up, as they had a veritable swarm of players compared with our Magnificent Seven. Our team had three superstars that were going for distance: Sando, Denis, and K, the rest of us were privileged enough to see these guys battle it out and to show our prowess as well. I believe several of Joel’s records were broken during this stretch, and K and Dave managed to soundly lead the way. I feel I acquitted myself well, particularly in the Hammer Toss where cries of “Westy Rage” were heard from the crowd (those that have seen me play disc golf know all about this, those that haven’t, the hammer is my putt of anger from ranges of 1 m to about 10 m). The distance had helped our confidence, though we didn’t get much of a break before our next game.

Round 3 was encouraging for us as we’d be going up against Bedtime with one more player than them. You’d think we should be able to win that sort of a matchup. The pre-match verbal indicated that the Bedtime would not be able to match us in any aspect of the game. They had no chance, no chance in hell. Unfortunately we seemed to have far more talk than we had game, and played 6-6 to make the game “even”. I can’t remember where we went wrong, but we did. All over the place we went wrong. The game should have been a chance to redeem ourselves from some of our earlier results. It turned out that while we were fully clothed, there were no beds being wet by our opposition. They stomped on us for a while, and then they stomped on us some more, until we looked like a thing that has been stomped on for two separate periods and hasn’t won a game of ultimate all day. Somehow I was the person speeching in the circle (somehow a game of thumbs decided this, and my distractedness got me nominated, go figure). I gibbered some words of congratulations and condolences and we broke for lunch and Olympics finals.
Lunch was a glorious spread of rolls, salad, ham, and cheese that, just like Subway, was made the way you wanted it. Provided you made it of course. To go with this lunchtime spread, there was fruit and water on supply throughout the day. The oranges provided were particularly ripe and juicy. They must have been imported from Brazil. The apples were also of a quality that you might not expect during a drought. Lunchtime was also a useful opportunity to re-apply (having applied sunscreen at the start of the day), though some on our team (Sando) learned the hard way that Suntime should be funtime not burntime.

The Disc Olympics finals did require that some of the Wifebeater lassies (I’m not sure if that makes the Wifebeatees or something else) had to have their turn to finish up the Distance efforts. Luckily for them they were allowed to, and ended up with a few faces in the finals proper. The men’s distance throws went mainly to one Joel Pillar (forehand and backhand). The hammer went to Ken Summers. For the ladies the distribution was not so uniform, with awards going to Claire (backhand), Sarah Fitton (forehand), and Natalia (hammer). Mixed in with all this were a men’s and a ladies’ 100m sprint won by Dutchie and Bron respectively. The craziest event of the day’s Disc Olympics though was the Throw-Run-Catch event. This event had it all from huge throws that escaped the clutches of their masters and mistresses, to spectacular layouts and crazy fumbles. The Ladies’ was won by Lizzy, and the Men’s by Huy. Outstanding results from all, as records were set and broken.

Amidst all the relaxing at lunchtime, and the rest of the day, there were a number of people availing themselves of our resident physiotherapist, John Salerno’s brother, and his deft abilities. I’m certain that this increased the enjoyment of the day, because there’s nothing worse than being reduced to a husk of a player before the day is done.

The lunch break became a fading memory as we lined up against our next opponents, the despicably low brow Wife beaters. While they looked like they knew what to do, they simply weren’t in the same class as The Lower Crust. We had the pleasure of taking early points for the first time all day, then managed to set up a lead. With support from the sideline showing up to cheer us on with calls of “Go Crusty” and then “Go Tux” we were spurred to excel like a thoroughbred mare at Flemington. This game had it all, with spectacular mistakes, great layouts, and beer being saved from spillage. Quite possibly the strangest sequence of play involved an unintentional beer block causing one young bogan grief, followed shortly by the same young bogan laying out along the sandy soccer pitch line in an attempt to D Denis. The resulting graze on his left shoulder did not look pleasant, but the beer fuelling his system certainly seemed to dull the pain. It is possible that the loss of his beer was more disheartening and distracting though. The spirit of the matchup was intense with the Wife beaters at one point sledging the new rich, and attempting to rally around their heritage from “Elizabeth and Upper Hackham”. The top hats were meant to be classy, but they got uppity and ran away with moustaches from team wifebeater. They claimed we had no breeding and didn't want to be seen on the heads of the newly rich. That may sound like a bad thing, but for some the fresh air that was now circulating close to the scalp was a welcome relief from the heat of the day. The Wife beaters couldn’t stop the Lower Crust though and though they claimed they’d give us “Something to cry about”, they failed to follow through. I feel sorry for their spouses following this match because bogans + alcohol + losing + spouses frequently ends up in an unpleasant state. And that’s when we call in the film crew of Cops. By the time the game was over we’d set up a fair win and we could walk from the field with pride for the first time that day.

I should add that by this time I was starting to feel the burn in my legs, and was hoping that there would be no break before the next game. I wasn’t so lucky and the next game was, for me personally, a disaster. I got through the first couple points at a cringing jog. The next two points reduced it to a limping hobble. After that it was clear I was done for the day, and a new strategy would be needed to defeat our final opponents, Hawaii. Hawaii, as you would learn from the TV footage, were dressed by Zach (well most of the guys were, the gals were wearing coconut support devices, and grass skirts). The whole team wore Lei’s and were very high spirited. They set up well, and had free players surging to the end zone every time that a score seemed likely. All I could do was try and keep up. The new strategy for us was to keep me long and hope that I could cut off the odd pass, or at least disrupt flow. While I don’t think I added that much, we started to get points back, and pull up to Hawaii. As the intensity took hold, the passes became more accurate, and the layouts began to happen. Brian spent more time on the ground than he did standing upright. By the time the five minute warning went we were level. A quick point each way got us tied on score by the time the siren went. The final point was going to be the decider in our last chance for a win of the day. The intensity was burning like a God infested bush, as we passed the disc quickly up field to score and take our second win of the day. Hawaii were as gracious in defeat as one expects from their club, and they were the only team we encountered acknowledging the best player with an award: a Lei for Chris Manning.

With the final game over the players began to congregate around the shaded organisers area to hear tell of the day’s victors. John began by presenting the Disc Olympics Medals. Joel Pillar somehow managed to mistakenly be awarded some of the ladies’ medals, before he traded them in for those more befitting his accomplishments. Dutchie accepted awards on behalf of Bron, and even managed to take one himself. A short delay before Peter finished crunching the numbers of victory was about to be filled by John reading the explanation of the weightings when Peter delivered us from maths and provided the final standings.

The results were:
6th Le Pelaton
5th Wife Beaters
4th Fear Discinsonia
3rd Hawaii
2nd Bedtime
1st The Lower Crust

The full table and list of finalists is provided at the end of the article courtesy of Peter Williams.
The disbelief on some faces said it all: winning everything was not the way to win. It was explained that the aim of the matches was to produce a high score, but a close game. Thus had the super teams of the day failed in the disguised spirit aspect of the Spirit In Disguise tournament. Scores were also allocated for spirit, Olympics results, and costume. While The Lower Crust had no doubt scored well in all categories, to produce a well rounded win, The most spirited team was Hawaii, and who can fault that choice? Winners are supposed to be grinners but only some of the team was grinning as their trophies were presented. The others had big sad frowny faces plus top hats. They looked like those creepy sad clowns you see in the circus. The Male MVP went to Alex BJ of The Wife beaters, and the female MVP went to the super-savage Mel Burnie of The Lower Crust.

With the formalities over the celebrations were set to begin (more details follow in the extra edition from John “The One We All Say Hail To” Salerno)… after the venue had been returned to it’s original state. We fastidiously took down our shade tents, and cleaned up what little litter had been left behind and stowed it in the luggage compartments of our automobiles. Unfortunately we couldn’t remove the blood sweat and tears of some players from the fields, but as we took away some fantastic memories we felt it was an even trade.

I’d like to thank everyone for showing up and competing, both on The lower Crust, and on all the other teams. Special thanks go out to the organisers of the event (these events don’t get off the ground, let alone run like they do, without these guys) and the volunteers who gave up the chance to play, and a significant portion of their weekends just to make sure we could have some fun without worrying about the details. Thanks also to the players from WA who came over just to compete/train with their SA based counterparts.

Thanks also to John Salerno for the report on the pub-crawl, I was to tired, and to much of a piker to make an appearance, instead flopping on the couch and watching Serenity (I recommend watching it, but not until you’ve seen Firefly so that you can really appreciate just how much better it could have been. Not that it’s a bad movie, it just could have been so much better.)

I’d also like to thank Dave Sanderson for his special comments in this report, and organising The Lower Crust when the rest of us couldn’t be bothered.

See you all on the playing fields,
Westy.


STOP PRESS! EXTRA EDITION!

“UE torch shines brightly”
Wellington
It all started at the shanty by suave Wellington where our guests from WA impressed by some of the finest alcoholic Ginger Beer in the land put back a couple of quite ones. Having won the advertiser award for the nicest schnitzel in SA, Adam, Richard and Morgan decided to take the challenge but were clearly disappointed. At this stage the crowd was quite small… and I thought OK… 1 more pub and I’ll call it a night.

Oxford – Enter The Torch
The Adelaide University contingent had decided to cash in early on the drink specials by starting at the Oxford. The place was buzzing with excitement. Viru soothing his weary muscles on a mechanical chair, Claire and others displaying medals they had won and Huy playing computer games. Cool hand Tom was there as was Katherine, Ian and a very mellow Peter Pan (aka Anna Milne). It was about time to start the party so after slipping a gold coin into Viru’s chair…. I caught a taxi home (3 blocks away) and returned holding the torch. Handing it to Morgan was a telling move. He was instantly noticed by a shy group of Italian middle age women who unsuccessfully tried to move in for the kill.

Archer - The Fellowship of the Torch
Some had troubles getting into the Archer….. but a group headed by Kristan Pash got in unharmed… Ben Reuter appeared from nowhere and I snuck in un-noticed. Some of Robyn’s friends had made it there too…. At least two of them were called Alyshia. Anyhow for those that thought it was tough getting into the Archer another challenge remained…. Getting upstairs proved impossible for some.

Queens Head – The Group Reunites
Things started to blur at this point…. What was clear was that many had jumped from Ox - Queens Head and everyone was there again. Ken, Steve & Slapper had gone the distance as too did many from Adelaide Uni. Officer Heath Michalek an old school buddy appeared from nowhere and we had an insightful discussion on teeth gaps with SAFDA president Kevin Robinson. I then introduced him to all my boys…. Boy K, Boy Appleby, Boy Morgan, Boy Robyn etc. He flashed his badge to the bouncer and we took up watch outside. The bouncer…., Queens Head #6 must be commended for his professional response and class throughout the night

Return of the Miggy
From the queens head a long walk ensued…. Destination unknown. Ladies swapping shoes and a stop along the Torrens at a plaque to remember a great man in the history of our state. Refusing John’s offer for a lesson in blackjack some took time out to relieve themselves at the Casino. From that point on the group trudged onto Hindley St and later Rundle mall. It was at this point that a shaggy haired man slightly taller than a hobbit trudged up to great us. At first it looked like Miggy but this man looked too windswept, too cool, sophisticated and so forth. In the end we identified him as the same miggy post make-over courtesy of his honey badger lady friend.

Extra Credit – The Austral
The last time I went out on such an escapade must have been 1987…. But as was the case then we all ended up at the Austral….. You think they would have improved the urinals in that place but I reckon the fittings are still the same. One final drink before being driven home Torch and all courtesy of an extremely sober Miggy in a funny looking rental.

Thanks to all who contributed to a great night
John Salerno

Results
The final results for the day, and events (only the top 3 are given) are as follows:
Final Results:
1. Lower Crust 80.80%
2. Bedtime 78.34%
3. Hawaii 76.82%
4. FEAR 75.16%
5. Wife Beaters 74.71%
6. Peleton 72.31%