The Kurilpa wheelchair Derby was first held in 2008 to celebrate world “No Car Day”. The main street of West End was closed for a parade which saw wheelchairs, bikes, skateboards and roller-skaters take back the streets. It is always an awesome day, which showcases the best facets of life in West End; creativity and community spirit

Brisbane Bike Polo is lucky to have awesome support from our local Councillor Helen Abrahams and the West End Community Association. They have encouraged us to  take part in the event for the last 3 years, letting us play in the closed off streets. Last year they provided us with water barriers and we had a cowboys vs Native Americans game. This year, they heard we were making permanent barriers for our courts at Musgrave Park and gave us some money to put toward the barriers.

The barriers themselves are made from form-work plywood, they are 120cm high, and will soon be hinged for easy storage. They will allow us to divide our weekly courts at Musgrave park, and effectively double the amount of games we can play during the day.

Events like these are awesome. They show the public that bike polo isn’t some massively dangerous underground sport, but  that it is accessible to anyone keen to give something new a go.

By Jamie Barber

Photographs by Cooper

I have never known anyone to put more photos of themselves up on Facebook than Dom.  I think the way to put him off his game is to put a some mirrors around the court to keep him distracted.  The first time I met Dom was when we played together at his first tournament, the Bench Minor in Sydney.  He was great to play with but he sure got fired up!  People who didn’t know him referred to him as “that really angry guy on your team.” Here’s a little more about Dom.

City:  Brisbane

Team:  Triple Dutch Rudder

Years played:  1.5

Super power:  Cage Rage

Favourite heckle: Do you eat the court like you eat your mum?

Bike:  Focale, freewheel with dual brake and 28:18 ratio

Mallet:  Northern Standard with uncapped generic head with cut out sides

Protection:  Gloves, knee pads, shin guards

What do you love most about bike polo?
My peeps from Sydney and BO Gear

By Virginia Castellan

If you missed our last player profile on Finn Hawkesby-Browne, you can access it here.

Brisbane,
The world’s most liveable city, built on the side of a hill with a muddy brown river running through the middle of it!

Home of ‘Steve-Irwin-Killing’ Sting-Rays, ‘Pokie’ machines and Australia’s most loveable polo community: Brisbane-Hardcourt-Bike-Polo (BHBP).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOwFTo4Q3I

BHBP proposes to host the largest ever Australasian Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships. The AHBPC13 will be held over four days, with no limit on registered teams (minimum of 32 teams), five demountable timber courts and floodlights for night play.

Our proposed dates for the AHBPC 2013 are from the 25/4/13 to the 28/4/13. This new date allows us to take full advantage of the Anzac day holiday, the cooler Brisbane climate and the fabulous Brisbane dry season. In form players will be better prepared for Worlds.

Brisbane is not known for its cool climate but with temperature average between 27.1 and 17.3 degrees polo is a dream to play throughout cooler months. The east coast of Australia is central to players from around Australia, New Zealand and Asia, allowing cheaper travel for players and allowing more players to attend.

The 25^th will be a working bee day where the players that are able to come early help complete the courts and other preparations, allowing for catch ups, beers and casual pickup when done. The 26^th will be a day of casual pickup, knife fights, foot downs and other games. There will be an alley cat to get to know the city, orientation of the local facilities and the ubiquitous pub-crawl. Followed be the main event on the 27-28th.

The courts for the AHBPC have moved from our home court at Musgrave Park in West End to a facility in Hamilton, the courts are located 8km from the CBD (approximately 27min polo commute or a five minute City Cat ride). We are hosting two tournaments in 2012 at this site.

The area is a large concrete slab roughly 200m x 800m, the facility comes with floodlights and power, and the proposed site is large enough to host five 20x40m courts with one court dedicated to pickup. The courts will be fabricated from wooden barriers that would be recycled for future events.

The layout includes an information tent that will provide a live score monitor (a plasma!), PA system, essentials (water, sun block, hugs) and lots of helpful information. The courts are next to a city cat terminal and close to public transport, shopping centres and hostels/hotels.

With the addition of a fourth court we estimate that we will be able to host a minimum of 32 teams. At this time we predict that registration fees will cost $25 per person, this sum may be less pending sponsors and fundraising.

The tournament will be insured, we already have cover and we already have the funding to cover this major cost. BHBP has been fundraising for the past couple of months, so we are already on our way to cover the foreseen major costs. We have already organised a few sponsorship deals and are

Additionally there will be shaded marquee areas with seating, bike racks, a mallet making workbench, sales booth for all teams/scenes to sell their merchandising, Gear stall, food/coffee will be available for purchase and an onsite mechanic. There will be an emergency nurse provided by cycling Queensland.

We are securing local government funding, as we did at AHBPC10, to help with the event.

To summarise:

The tournament will be held from the 25^th to the 28^th of April.

4 full size 20x40m courts including floodlights

1 dedicated pickup court

Bike racks

Shade, marquees and seating

Mallet fixing workbench

Food/coffee

Sales booth for all team merch

Gear stall

Mechanic

Medic

Information tent

Over 30 Brisbane players to help organise event

City Cat (public transport) terminal adjacent to courts

Insurance already organised

BHBP has an exciting tight knit community; we pride ourselves on playing fun, competitive polo; with a good slathering of dick jokes, heckling and laughter. BHBP was established 4 years ago and now have over 30 league players.

We have hosted many successful tournaments including AHBPC10, this year a BHBP team came 2^nd, the highest ranked result in any AHBPC for BNE. Our dedicated players have also attended every AHBPC since Melbourne 09, we have also sent two teams to worlds and our players have played at many other top-level tournaments.

With this wide-ranging tournament experience we aim to host the largest and most entertaining nationals yet. Our members know the difficulties that arise in arranging large-scale torments, and have the experience to achieve it and over come the hurdles that will arise. We all aim to improve upon our previous effort and know that our experiences in Perth and other AHPBC will inform us on what works best and what needs improving in the structure and organisation of this important tournament.

See you soon,

from BHBP

And yes, the Go-Betweens are from Brisbane: Youtube

When Kristine finds spare time in her busy schedule of providing haute couture for hobos and breast feeding her cat, she is being a menace down at musgrave park in Brisbane. She plays as hard, if not harder than any of the lads and can out drink the park locals.  Here’s a little more about Kristine.

City:  Brisbane, Australia

Team:  DYGDOYMLT (Do you go down on your mum like that)

Years played:  2

Super power:  Slashing

Favourite heckle: Fist the court!

Bike:  Unknown brand, freewheel with dual brake and a massive ratio

Mallet:  Ski pole with uncapped generic head with side cut-outs

Protection:  Gloves, knee pads and shin guards

What do you love most about bike polo?
The amazing people.

If you missed our last player profile on Scott dMello, you can access it here.

By Virginia Castellan and Jamie Barber

The first time I saw Jamie was at the 2009 Melbourne Nationals.  He had long blonde hair, really short shorts and cardboard wrapped around his forks.  I thought “who the fuck is this weirdo?”  Many years down the track, much has changed.  The hair is shorter, the shorts are longer and the cardboard is long gone.  Jamie is definitely one of my favourite people to play with and against.  Here’s a little more about Jamie.

City:  Brisbane, Australia

Team:  Majestic Pink Shafts

Years played:  4 years

Super power:  Hamster style

Favourite heckle: Your Dad tried to molest me but he’s impotent

Bike:  8th Inch, freewheel with dual brake and 35:22 ratio

Mallet:  MKE Shaft with uncapped head with closed sides

Protection: Pull out

What do you love most about bike polo?
The smell of man sweat

If you missed our last player profile on Morgan Allen, you can access it here.

By Virginia Castellan

With his ridiculous hand on the ground hockey stops in goal, there’s more lefty bullshit in Ben than in the entire T.B.A. team (who have 2 lefties).  It’s really good to see how he has not only managed to overcome his handicap, he has taken it to the next level.  Lefty bullshit forever!!  Here’s a little more about Ben.

City:  Brisbane, Australia

Team:  D.Y.G.D.O.Y.M.L.T. (Do you go down on your mum like that)

Years played:  1 year

Super power:  Lefty bullshit

Favourite heckle: “Northern Standard – two really short mallets for the price of one”

Bike:  Hoffy, fixed with front brake only, 44:23 ratio

Mallet: MKE shaft, uncapped closed sides head

Protection:  She’s got that covered

What do you love most about bike polo?
Ollie’s tits

If you missed our last player profile on Nick Metcalfe, you can access it here

By Virginia Castellan

A Tale of Three Teams… 

So it turns out that the GOALHOLE team were a bit crap at paying attention to games they weren’t actually playing in..  In a three part series, we tell you what happened at AHBPC 2012 through the eyes of The Triple Dutch Rudders, Love Sex Violence and the Gold Coast Studs.  Here’s part 1.

Triple Dutch Rudders by Ollie Wykeham (finished in 2nd place)

Tell us about your team  

TDR have been around since the dawn of time (late 2010 early 2011) when Dom and I joined forces. We have had many illustrious third players: Erik (owner of Gear Brisbane), Ray (now on TBA with Vive and AJ) and Brook (on DOGSOCCER!).
This incarnation have been together since mid last year, we were lucky enough to have Dave aka. The Orangutan join our team and whip us into shape. Not many people know that Ranga has secret powers and can see in the dark.

What were your team tactics going into the tournament? 

Three out in attack, as we have aways done. Hack the bone, play hard and wild swings or nothing. Basically listen to Ranga ‘cos he’s the boss.

How did this work out for you? 

We got off to a good start in the group stages beating Knify Spoony 5-1 – a lucky win as they were beaten by Not A Single Fuck Was Given only 1-0 – we gelled nicely during this game. We were in a group with three BNE teams and a bunch of other great teams, so we jokingly called ours the group of death. Some epic games were had. By the end of the day we had two super tough games left, Majestic Pink Shafts from BNE (our friends and rivals) and NASFWG the Perth boys. We lost to MPS 3-2, these boys know our game so well and shut us out. The game against Perth was the game of the day, it was a goal for goal epic ending up drawn at 4-4. Overall W4-D1-L1 and ranked 5th on the first day, same as last year.

During double elimination things just got harder, we started against Hall and Scrotes who made us work our asses off for a 4-1 win. We then got to play DOGSOCCER!, a game we had all been looking forward to as we last faced Morgan in the final of the Toupo Tap-Out and Brook as I mentioned before was a Dutch Rudder in a former life. It was a fast and hard game, we dropped two early goals, but we came back to end up taking it 3-2. Melbourne Anchor (Lewd) were then waiting for us, a game I personaly had been looking forward to since I heard they formed – three tough and fast players forming a dream team… Shieeet – Lewd got the opening goal fairly quickly, which fired us up to come back. Dom got the goal of the tourney – a run down the left flank from my bb pass which he tapped in just before going over the barriers. It was a close game, but we ended up pulling through on time 2-1. Which took us to NASFWG again – this was our semi final - these boys are great fun to play, they have an awesome playing style and always have smiles on their faces. This was probably the hardest game of the day for me.

Then the final, we watched the teams we had knocked into the bottom bracket fight it out, with LSV knocking out Lewd in spectacular fashion, LSV then played DOGSOCCER! in a Sydney grudge match, then DOGSOCCER! played NASFWG for the other semi final, another close game but the Perth guys came through coming back to verse us in the final.

It was a bit surreal being there on court waiting for the final to begin, we had been so focused on getting through each game that we had barely noticed how well we were doing and where we stood. We opted to have a single final, rather than a double elim, the Perth boys offered it to us but we thought it would be unsporting to play two finals.
To be honest, until I watched the video yesterday I couldn’t remember much of the final, I guess the sun, beer and subsequent nights out washed it from my memory. By the third time we played them Not A Single Fuck Was Given had our number, they kept tight defence with two, often three, keepers and waited for us to give them openings. It was a good strategy as in what seemed like no time we were down 4-0, the Perth guys were getting awesome shots off and dominating play. I remember firing up at this point, thinking “this is the final, I have to play my hardest now, no more polo after this.” soon after that Ranga Dave set me up for our only goal, a chip over Scotties front wheel (still so stoked!). A couple of minutes later, when we thought we were on the fight back, I made a stupid pass (or shot) into Scotties wheel, Prawi was there to pick it up behind our defensive line and walk it home into an open goal. Game!

Which game was your favourite to play in at the tournament?

Probably our group stage draw agains Not A Single Fuck Was Given, we had lots of awesome games but that game was so even and we all came off with huge smiles on our faces. I also always enjoy playing The Underdogs, from Sydney – Tsz, Eddy and Danos – they play tough physical polo (which I love), they all have awesome bike skillz and heckle like bosses.

Which game was your favourite to watch?

The LSV vs Melbourne Anchor (Lewd) grudge match. So fiery, so much tention and heckling. I think that is where I lost my voice. But I also loved the GC Studs vs. Polo Bears, the studs take the cake for the best heckles and most entertaining play. It was hilarious to watch Andy T. roll through the entire GC team – while they shouting, screaming and crashing into each other – with a huge grin on his face and slot a goal. Priceless polo moment and pure physical comedy.

Rate your overall Perth experience

This was so far the most fun I have had playing at a nationals, usually I get knocked out second game second day so I spend my day drinking and making mischief. This was a different experience, it was strange to not be the most drunk at the awards ceremony.
Thanks to the Perth organisers and players for hosting a great tourney.

When he’s not playing polo or receiving massages from other Brisbane males, Jordan likes heckling the crap out of anyone playing.  Here’s a few more things about Jordan.

City:  Brisbane, Australia

Team:  Majestic Pink Shafts

Years played:  2.5

Super power:  I don’t have one at the moment

Favourite heckle: “Do you go down on your mum like that”, “Nice legs, what happened to your face”, “Hey cutie, where’s your sister?”

Bike:  Traitor frame, freewheel with dual brake and 35:21 ratio

Mallet:  MKE shaft with cut out sides on the head

Protection:  Force field

What do you love most about bike polo?
That it constantly gets me into fights with my girlfriend.  It’s the only time we talk.

Something you will soon learn about me dear reader is that I am a creep behind the lens. This is aptly displayed with this photo essay.

Something I have been fascinated by is the injuries people sustain during tournaments. Not just the most extreme, but the entire array of injuries that players pick up over a day of alcohol fuelled competitive play. The photos below are from one single tournament – the Valentines Day 2×2 tourney organised by Ali held in Brisbane – and are of all the players shin injuries.

Shins you ask?

The inspiration came from (the infamous) Jordie Boy and the shin gash he received in East Vancouver post Worlds last year (his photo is top centre). Word on the street is he caught he shin on a players rear axel, splitting it deep and requiring him to navigate the treacherous waters of the Canadian hospital system.

You will also learn dearest reader that I have a penchant for referencing Oliver, the musical, wherever possible.

By Ollie Wykeham