Brave Lions Ultimately Beaten by UEA
Despite a strong start by the Men’s 2nd against UEA, they ended up falling to their third straight loss of the season.
Birmingham took the lead after around two minutes of play before UEA responded on their next possession. Birmingham then scored again to make it 2-1, showing great movement around the end-zone.
However, UEA showed their class after these opening moments, responding with several goals in quick succession. This meant that by half time, the visitors had an astounding lead of 9 goals to 2.
By this point, the game seemed to be a foregone conclusion as UEA came out for the second half and continued to show their class. However, Birmingham never gave up, and this dedication was perhaps best embodied by Nick Fine’s acrobatic dive for the disc in the end-zone. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite get to it, but his determination whilst being over 10 points down really rallied the team.
This showed as Birmingham’s Chris Allen’s diving attempt was successful, followed by another Birmingham goal, again by Allen, taking the score to 14-4. That’s when our man of the match, Cameron Gray, popped up with a fantastic pass from around the half way line all the way to the end-zone to make it 14-5.
Shortly after this, we thought that UEA had won the game after one of their players got up higher than anyone else to make a fantastic catch in the end-zone. However, the goal was disallowed because it was deemed that whilst jumping, he made contact with a Birmingham player which is a foul. What was so interesting about this was the fact that the game Ultimate is self officiated, so instead of putting pressure on one or two officials to make decisions, whenever something contentious happens, both teams have a discussion about it and come to a mutual decision.
Unfortunately, UEA then scored again (fairly this time) taking their score to 15 (the score limit of the game), but Birmingham’s persistence really made it an entertaining game for the neutral. Moreover, instead of being bad losers, Birmingham invited UEA to sit and have a chat about the game after all the handshakes had been completed.
Whilst this does mean that Birmingham 2nds are eliminated from the cup, I think the positive that can be taken is that, overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience as a spectator, and I would recommend watching a game of Ultimate to experience it for yourself.
