All 1 entries tagged Ping

Glassball Social – A new record?

Well, it's exactly two months after our last entry, announcing the exciting event I've finally got round to reporting on, so you'll forgive me for being hazy on the details.

For starters, we booked a room in the Ramphal building. There are something like 16 or 18 people in our 1025 group, and most of them turned up. Even Becky, who, as far as we can tell, has a love for Glassball to rival her skill at the game (pause while author attempts to remember a tournament she didn't lose – oh yes, when Claire was playing!). Anthony turned up early to set up, with a bag full of empty beer bottles from our good friend Rob – mostly stella, but with a few Buds as well for variation. The tables in the Ramphal are a different shape to Rootes kitchen tables, but since we haven't been able to play in Rootes since moving out, anything was good. We set up 3 games, which has to be a record in Glassball history. As far as we are aware, there has never been a time when more than one game was played at once (unless you count doubles with two balls on a single table). Everybody played at least once. We ended the evening with a tournament, and Christine took charge of the logistics, including impartial player selection ("pick a number… no, not that one – she can't play him…"). The only person she forgot to include was herself. With three games played at once, and more often than not everyone who had more than 2 hours' experience in a game, we had some rookie refs, but by and large everything was done by the book. I don't recall every result from the quarters and semis, but I know that two or three of the newbies turned out to be very good. The group is made up of people from Rootes, past or present, so hopefully they will be inspired to take the game back to their kitchens and so pass on the torch. With over a dozen participants, we confidently expected quite a crowd for the final, but, true to tradition, nearly everyone left after the semis. Only a staunch 3 or 4 stayed around other than the ref, and they sat in the corner playing cards…

They missed quite a reasonable match, though Colin convincingly beat Anthony (did I mention they were the finalists…?). The prize (a friendly hug from Colin) would have been a bit lonely for our conquering hero, so it was exchanged for a friendly hug from someone else. Matthew, to be precise. And there was great rejoicing. As well as lots of confusion among the unenlightened later on about the presence of 3 dozen bottles, 10 ashtrays and a large piece of wood in Colin's bag.

: 26 Jan 2006 10:34 |  Tags: 1025 Budweiser CU Glassball Ping Pong Social Stella |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem