Netball Interclub Tournament
T’ARAH INAM-MCDERMOTT RELAYS THE EVENTS OF THE NETBALL INTERCLUB TOURNAMENT
On a cold, dark evening in early November, UCL’s finest and fittest gathered into Saint Pancras Community Centre for probably the most bizarre and amazing netball match I have ever seen – the annual Netball Interclub Tournament! This is a charity event run by the Netball Society where teams from several societies play netball against each other. This year the event was held to raise money for the British Lung Foundation which promotes lung health and supports those with lung disease. The theme was MarioKart, with each team being assigned a character to dress up as, incentivised by a prize for best costume.
Thanks to the undying patience and hard work of the Marios (Netball) organising it, the event was a big success! With 10 teams to organise and keep track of, and having to start and referee two continuous matches every 5 minutes, they really had their work cut out. Pretty much every other referee decision was challenged despite the fact those playing didn’t properly know the rules. There also were several blatant attempts at cheating, such as moving the whole net when the other team attempted to score. However the netball girls dealt with it all firmly, fairly, and with great humour.
About an hour in, after seeing a Mushroom (Swimming) attempting to block Luigi (Basketball) and thinking this couldn’t get more surreal, the mischievous Waluigi (Snowsports) rolled in a speaker. Thus begun ‘the Vengabus is Coming’ dance party with all the teams dancing in harmony, briefly leaving all the competition on the pitch. That is until alcohol started getting thrown and I ducked out to save my camera.
The final game of Rugby Men Seniors Vs Men’s Basketball commenced to shouts of ‘This is War!’. This ended in a highly contested 2-2 draw, so the game went to extra time. With only 2 minutes left until we would be kicked out of the community centre, Rugby scored the winning hoop and celebrated as though they had just won the Six Nations.
The winners of the costume prize were Men’s Hockey who were dressed as Princess Daisy. They may have been mistaken for Belle from Beauty in the Beast (actually I’m pretty sure that’s what the costumes were sold as…), but they looked pretty spectacular and they must have been pretty cold so I won’t argue. I would also like to give a special mention to Swimming who creatively used swimming caps in their Mushroom costume. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Over £250 pounds was raised for the British Lung Foundation and everyone had an amazing time. Plus I got to see a very angry Princess Peach shouting at the ref. All in all, a big success.