UCC Canoe Club Blog

Anyone new to the club, or even current members, may like to have a read of this report I wrote a few years ago. Unfortunately it's only a short version of the original.. so it only contains two days of observation.. If I find more I'll post it up..

Varsities Feb 9^th to 12^th Dublin/Wicklow (3 or 4 yrs ago…)The annual Intervarsities took place in Dublin, and were hosted by Trinity. Polo was due to start early on the Friday Morning and so Gunther decided that the club would travel up on the Thursday night so we wouldn’t have to get up early on the Friday. Later Trinity changed the Polo to 7pm on the Friday but UCC’s plan didn’t change. An extra night away always sounds good! 

Thursday 3pm

The club arranges to meet in Cissies at 3pm. The floor of the pub yet again, like Jacks weekend, is littered with bags, suitcases, and canoe gear. Tucked into the “clubs” corner at the back everyone is animated and trying to find out what people are dressing up as for the fancy dress on the Saturday night.

Gunther and Mags are doing the drinks run in Tesco. These drinks will cover the bus journey & jungle juice for Saturday night.

At 5pm “Stormin Norman” the bus driver appears and with a cheer and a rush for the loo 19 happy paddlers jump onto the bus. Everyone sits as close to the back as possible. The club oldies will travel up tomorrow after they’ve finished work so the 19 on the bus tuck into all sorts of junk and drinks of wine and Dutch Gold, while trying to conceal the fact that they are drinking, as Norman has banned drink on the bus for the 5^th year in a row, to no avail.

A sing-song starts immediately with random songs being sung with massive enthusiasm. Rattling Bog, Kenya, Where is Shadow (thanks to Willy), Bohemian Rhapsody.. etc. The bus has to stop 4 times for members to raid local town’s fast-food restaurants for their toilets. Throughout the journey pictures are constantly being taken for people sensible enough to take digitals, and no-one is too shy to hop into any photo being taken. As we continue up the country about 12 people now are attempting to sit on the back row and it is clear that most people are worse for wear (We almost lose Johnny Jobs as he ends up at the bottom of a pile on and turns a nice shade of blue). An imitation bottle of Malibu has been shared among those at the back and is polished off within minutes…straight from the bottle, mostly by Askea, Heather and Mags. Gunther has brought a guitar and takes it out from its hiding place at the front. Everyone crowds around him in the middle of the bus, 4 people to a seat. A list of demands for popular songs is shouted at Gunther and so he keeps us all entertained for hours.

Hours later, with two new members in particularly bad states (Boris has fallen between two seats and can’t free himself) we reach our destination in Laaragh in Co Wicklow, quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Norman is staying in a B&B above where the club are staying. We have been given 5 cottages, side by side, with 3 bedrooms in each, one en-suit (Lemon and Askea nab this). The canoe club is not used to this luxury.

5 of the girls gather together and point out that if we stick together we’ll have a better chance of staying in a warm house, with food, and possibly avoid hosting the bigger parties. Running for the 1^st house with as much bags and drink possible the girls make it into the 1^st cottage laughing. “It’s the 1^st time we’ve had a girly house!” Mags sniggers as we reach the cottage un-noticed. Unfortunately 2 girls are left behind in the dash, and miss out on the “Girly House”. From years of experience the wised up girls know that having their own house is something that will probably never happen again. The two left behind quickly run to another house in the hope of a “girly room”. Meanwhile the party house is quickly established as the last cottage, and so everyone immediately gathers there, with drinks in hand. Daithi and Jane have arrived, with the trailer full of boats, and so by 11.30pm the party is well under way. It’s all fairly civilised, everyone sits in a circle and sings more songs. People drift off to bed at 3am hoping for an early night after the long journey. In the girly house it is noticed that our key has gone missing and so we can’t lock our house for the night. Highly suspicious we head for bed anyway.

At 5am I wake up, hearing evil laughter and loud "SSSSSH’s", I’m sharing a room with Mary, and when I glance over I see two black silhouettes in the room. One has a head torch on his head that has a red light flashing on and off, which fills the room with an eerie glow. Mary is literally unconscious after a good night of drinking and their aim to frighten her is not working. One visitor decides to lift her mattress off the bed to wake her up, Mary slides off the mattress still asleep. Next her blanket is ripped off the bed. Again Mary still does not move and so with fits of laughter the two figures disappear into the night, Mary’s blanket in tow. As I follow them out into the hall to recover Mary’s blanket, Heather runs out of her room to see what all the commotion is. The two lads are long gone so covering Mary up, I return to bed. The girlie house key remains “missing” for the rest of the weekend…

Friday

At ten the next morning I’m woken up by a gathering of all the canoe club girls, including our stranded friends (living in the party house). We decide to wake up all the boys in every house for revenge for Mary, who hasn’t a clue what happened during the night. Revenge completed, it was Tommy and Gunther who visited, we return to the house for breakfast. Daithi offers to drive Heather to the shop to get food for a fry, I’m especially delighted as I’ve been roaring for someone to feed me for thirty minutes now…. 10mins later they return and the girls start cooking a feast. One by one the smell attracts all the boys and soon we are cooking for an army of 21 in our little kitchen.

“Having a girly house has its drawbacks!” Heather admits as the last sausages are cooking and being eyed up by hungry paddlers.

With nothing to do till polo that night the white-water team decide to run Jackons, the drop in the race they face on Saturday. As Jackson’s is only meters from our cottages we all follow down to support the team of 4 paddlers. There’s a group of paddlers on the river already. A few paddlers take a swim down the drop, but it’s all fairly routine as no-one gets stuck in an eddy so the rescue team at the bottom gets people off the water quickly. One non UCC paddler suggests jumping off the cliff thingy that we’re standing on. There is a quick discussion about rocks and diving technique and one lad offers himself up for the first jump. Some people try telling him not to as it may be too shallow or rocky but he goes ahead anyway. Everyone rushes to the edge to see if he’s ok and within seconds he emerges from the water with a thumb in the air to signify that he’s fine. With the guinea pig safe, all the other lads start jumping too but only Tommy jumps from our gang. Entertainment over for the moment we head back through the boggy fields to our cottages. The rest of the day is spent scrounging for food in other people’s houses and gathering in the sitting rooms to enjoy the heat of the fires in the houses where the fires are lit. At 5 o clock everyone gathers again on the bus to head to the first match of the Varsities. Its polo and everyone is excited and anxious that UCC will do well, after all the training that has been done, people want to get into a decent round this year, as for 2 years in a row UCC has been knocked out in the 1^st round. Boris, a fresher, continuously shouts that we have to beat UL this year and calls them every name under the sun throughout the journey. Unfortunately we hit Dublin rush hour traffic at 6 and at 7 we are still on the M50 and people are getting stressed. Gunther and Daithi sit at the top of the bus with Norman trying to get off the motorway and take a shortcut to the pool the match is on. We eventually come to a junction but the lights remain red for us for what seems like hours, and time is not on our side. Gunther hops out of the bus and presses the pedestrian lights so the green man will give us a chance to drive onto the road. The second he presses it the green man comes on, the cars stop and with deafening cheers Norman speeds out on the road and all the other cars are greeted by a bus of waving and cheering lunatics pressed against the windows.

Speeding along we eventually reach the pool and eagerly hop out and rush into the pool. We’re just in time, UCC is in the 3^rd match and so we all run up the stairs to get good spectators sits on the balcony.

The match commences 6 minutes a side, 5 on a side, 4 boys and the token girl per college. The first match is easily won by Trinity, and Ul win the second, much to the disgust of Boris. UCC proudly and a little anxiously walk out to much singing and shouting from the UCC spectators. As they wait at the side of the pool and official runs out and says something to the captain Gunther. He goes over to the team and says something, gives us spectators a wave and the team walk off again. There is much confusion up on the balcony and hanging over the side of the balcony people try to see what’s going on. Gunther appears beside us saying that UCC have been given a bi into the 2^nd round as Jordanstown haven’t turned up. Although this means we don’t have to play there is disappointment as now there is a 40min wait until UCC’s next match against UCD. A few of us hungry spectators take the opportunity to find a shop, and instead locate a McDonalds, and forget our health conscious views (Ha!), and tuck into warm food that’s not pasta for a change. Back at the pool UCC finally line up for their game, and in unison we all start chanting UCC UCC UCC UCC UCC as loud as possible while stamping our feet. None of the oldies have arrived yet and the club spectators at the moment consist of committee members and freshers. The cheers are deafening as goal after goal is scored from UCC members Boris and Daithi. Our goalie Grogan is fantastic, and saves goal after goal. Instantly “We love you Grogan” is sung at all levels of “harmony”, after each attempt to score is blocked by him. He later admits he was afraid to look up at us to thank us in case while doing so he missed a goal and embarrassed himself. Boris on the other hand has no such fear and cheers and throws his paddles in the air waving at us after every goal. UCD’s cheering squad has now admitted defeat to both our polo team and our cheering squad, and with a final result of 7-0 UCC are through to the 3^rd round!

The 3^rd round comes soon against NUIG. The match commences and within seconds UCC has a goal scored by Daithi, this is met with instant cants of “UCC UCC UCC” again. Our subs on the sideline join in with the chanting and for the entire 1^st half the chant continues. Later in the 2^nd half Daithi is given a green card for arguing with another player, the crowd doesn’t take it too seriously. Boris is fowled later by being capsized when he didn’t have he ball. A silent descends on the crowd as Boris concentrates on taking the shot. A few freshers are covering their eyes and biting their fingers, despite the fact that UCC are actually winning. Boris aims and shoots the ball, and without any dramatics .. scores. Again UCC goes mad and stamps their feet approvingly! The final result 7-1.UCC are into the semi-final against DCU.

However, worryingly there is no time for UCC to rest and they are told theirs is the next game after the current one. Exhausted they wait at the side and discuss in a huddle tactics. DCU are usually the winners of most polo games so UCC has every right to look anxious.

Once on the water, the spectators go mad again, singing and chanting while hanging dangerously over the balcony for a better view. After the initial score from our viewpoint we see that the score keepers haven’t put UCC’s goal on the score board. Everyone is indignant and shout to get their attention. Finally they look up, see their error and quickly change the score before chants of abuse are starting from the loudest college in the pool. It is now half ten and the players look worn out. DCU score two goals and UCC miss 4 shots. Now the confident chants have turned to urgent cries of encouragement. Willy is exchanged for Grogan, and leaves his goal to score a goal from the corner. UCC are elated, but the happiness is short lived. The two refs signal to disallow the goal as Willy took the shot from an illegal position. There is outrage amongst the crowd, with one fresher not realising the goal was disallowed shouting at the score keepers that they’ve “forgotten to put up our goal again”. Willy hands the ball over and the game continues, as the minutes turn to seconds UCC gets a little quieter, especially when DCU score again. 3…2…1… game over. Disappointed but proud of UCC’s accomplishment the spectators start the UCC chant again and drown out the cheers form DCU.

As we wait for the team to get changed everyone starts analyzing each game and no-one has anything but praise for the team who finally got UCC into a semi final. So 3^rd place for UCC is nothing to complain about. When the team meet us on the balcony they are met with even louder cheers. Daithi says that at one stage he was shouting things to the other players but no-one could hear him because of UCC’s chanting. We are jokingly accused of losing them the match. Without staying to see the final, much to some spectator’s disappointment seeing as we have been watching for hours and its 11pm Gunther shoos everyone back on the bus to try and grab the end of the 1^st night party. The journey on the bus is quicker without any traffic and everyone huddles in a group still talking about the matches and laughing at Boris who is almost devastated about not having the chance to play against UL. His obvious elation at coming 3^rd in his first match is contagious.

Back at Larragh in Wicklow, we have missed last call, but all the oldies are in the pub, having made it up to Wicklow at last, and so most people hop out of the bus to see what’s happening at the party, while some of the more tired players go back to our cottages which are only 700 meters down the road. Our location is being kept a secret from the other colleges because we don’t want everyone coming back to the cottages and thrashing them, as has happened in the past.

A very drunk bunch of oldies are sprawled around the pub, trying to stand up straight and dance to no music (that would be you Rage!). We don’t stay long as the pub is closing so we walk back to the cottages. A game of tag rugby is started and continues for over an hour, with everyone playing. The teams battle on and forget the idea of “tag” and massive attacks are launched, illegal tackles and pile ons. The competitive side of people emerges and the battles continue, which each side making up new rules after every tackle (Anto being the main offender). After ending up at the bottom of another pile on, I hear Seanie Murph cheer “Mighty work” and “clap for Eilis, clap for Eilis” as she is scraped off the ground yet again. Everyone starts laughing at him as it was him who sent her flying in the first place. Eventually with no score being kept, or remembered, we lose the ball when it falls off the side of the hill our houses are, and into a thick hillside full of gorse bushes. The game comes to an unexpected end and sadly we go indoors to join the rest of the oldies who are having arm wrestling matches. The Rage is getting unmerciful teasing as he has lost every match so far, so Mary comes forward to challenge him and hilariously beats him, despite the fact he was leaning an elbow on his thigh under the table in an effort to cheat….

 (Report, not the weekend, ends here... )