Team for Wednesday 2nd November - Meet 1830 Bar Kick

The 2nd November....its a kind of halfway house between Halloween and Bonfire Night.

Will we celebrating with a rendition of Katie Perry's 'Firework' or will poor performances give us ghoulish nightmares....come to think of it I'd prefer neither.

2 teams this week split over 5 games. One squad of 6 starting early and the remainder will fulfil the last three fixtures (now incorporating Dave Jackson's revolutionary squad rotation scheme based on Cambridge University maths.)

I've based the teams on how early people usually turn up, how much they've played before and who's most likely to at the end for further drinks....oh and I've tried to make them evenly matched..... and we're playing The London Artful Dodgers twice, so we'll mess with their heads by playing 2 different teams against them....and the switching over between matches will no doubt please referee T-M :-)
....Its going to be chaos!!

The Really Awful Dodgers 'Early' 2 games - unchanged team. (Start 1930)

• Andrew Davies
• Alastair Hegarty
• Jill Hawker
• Chad Locke (debut)
• Simon Obee
• Girl (TBC)

Fixtures:
v Cojones (Match 1)
v The London Awful Dodgers (Match 4)


The Really Awful Dodgers 'Late' (no, not in the T4 way) - Start 1945

• Steven Barrett
• Will Cheverton
• Ali Clark (debut)
• Mitch Fernandez
• David Jackson
• Michael McCaw (debut)
• Rachel Morris
• Steph (Mike's better half) (debut)
• Jesse Wilkins

Fixtures:
v JustDodging (justgiving.com) (Match 2)
v The Dodgebetweeners (Match 3)
v The Artful Dodgers (Match 5)

Team for Wednesday 26th October - Meet 1830 Bar Kick

A great turn out by the girls this week.

And some of the team will be proudly wearing the new T-shirts!

Its only Premier League games this week and with the season drawing to a close its a great time to secure a final night spot or start our traditional end of season slump!

I think 6 ooints will do it but most importantly. Lets smash Stedders off the court!

The Awful Dodgers - 1915 start

1. Steve Barrett
2. Alexandra Bono
3. Sean Broughton
4. Raphael Emerich
5. David Jackson
6. Karen Leite
7. Tom Stubbs
8. Sarah Tessier
9. Kyla Winter

Fixtures
v Dodgeball UK Heart Throbs
v Balls Deep
v Ball Busters

Team Confirmation: 19th October 2011

A good show from the lads. We need a couple more girls to cover for Kyla and Alex.

The Really Awful Dodgers start first.
Meet 1830  Bar Kick 1830 for a swift half before being ready for 1900.

If anyone wants to swap starts we can do that this week. Look who is playing for the Really Awful Dodgers this week!!

The Really Awful Dodgers (start 1900)

1. Richard Banks
2. Steven Barrett
3. Andrew Davies
4. Jill Hawker
5. Alastair Hegarty
6. David Jackson
7. Simon Obee
8. Rachael Morris
9. Girl (TBC)

Fixtures:
v JustDodging (Justgiving.com)
v Team Merdeboite
v Magic

The Awful Dodgers (start 2015 approx)

1. Will Cheverton
2. Brandon Davis
3. Richard Djaelani
4. Raphael Emerich
5. John Murray
6. Tom Stubbs
7. Sarah Tessier
8. Vara Arnold
9. Girl (TBC)

Fixtures:
v Jammie Dodgers - The Original
v Balls Deep
v Ball Out War

Good Luck everyone.

Match Reports: 12th October: "Haven't we seen you somewhere else before?"

Having won seven matches in a row and and rather bizarley finding ourselves yop of the league this was still ti be our first week without Vi :-(

How would the team cope? On the plus side (a very angry) Kyla was back.

However,  with the flames from last weeks 'First Battle of Shoredicth' dying down it was the Really Awful Dodgers who arose from the ashes like a Phoenix to be the star team this week.

First up however were the Premier League Team. This week they welcomed new players Brandon Davis and Sarah Tessier into the squad who had shamelessly been fast-tracked into the first team on the basis that they were Canadian! Yes that's correct. That is the limit of my tactical genius.

The Awful Dodgers

v Dodgeball UK Heart-Throbs

With some of the squad reluctnat to leave the comfort of the Bar Kick sofas and Raphael 'Getting a London A-Z for Christmas' Emerich being guided in to the new venue by mobile phone. The first team were somewhat disorganised when they first arrived on court. The first game was going to be tough if 'as promised' Dodgeball UK supremo Andy Stedman was going to use the 'Heart-Throbs' as an invitational 'all-star' team. Indeed their first weeks set of results had been good winning 3/3 games against decent oppositon. They even selected 'yours truly'. However, thankfully for our unbeaten run it was an entirely different team that lined up against us.Hmmmm.....haven't we seen some of these players before.
If we were disorganised on court, Didgeball UK has been a mess behind the scenes. The promised presence of Dodgeball's  'Harlem Globetrotters' where not in evidence and instead we were faced with the team we seem to play EVERY WEEK. Schoolgirls & Ball Girls + league referee Terrie-May.
To their credit the replacements put up a valient resisitance proving that they are getting better every week. In fact at one point it looked like the match was going to go in their favour.
This wasn't the best performance by a long stretch by the Awful Dodgers however soem great throwing by Kyla who had now focuseed her day's anger on Dodgeball destruction saw us claw our way to another win.

Result: Awful Dodgers 2 Dodgeball UK Heart Throbs 1

v Schoolgirls & Ball-Girls
The old football chant goes.
"Can we play you every week?"
With School Girls & Ball Girls we seem to have got our wish. This week we effectively played them twice. With Raphael now in situ and raring to make his season debut we were confident that this match was going to be breeze........It wasn't......even though the final score suggests it was. THe SGs & BGs are fast improving rapidly but ultimately they had just played six matches on the tot and were knackered.
On the plus side they picked up their first win of the season and personally I'm glad to get our fixtures against them out of the way for this season. We've beat the 3 (four) times out of 3 (four) and 'm sure by the end of the season they will start beating a few teams who are near the top of the league. Thsi can only help us:-)
They are also a very socialble and decent team. we like playing them.

Result: The Awful Dodgers 2 Schoolgirls & Ball-Girls 0

v Busted Balls
Was this to be the '2nd Battle of Shoreditch'?
Well....in a word...No. Alex was devasted that her arch-nemisis was adsent from their team. Did the lack of this vital spark lead to the end of our nine match unbeaten run that had took us from our usual spot in the lower reaches of the league to the VERY TOP. Did we run out of steam or were a fully focussed Busted Balls simply too good for us?
Whatever the outcome our record breaking set of results have left us in a very healthy position to qualify for finals night:-) Onwards and upwards.

Result: The Awful Dodgers 0 Busted Balls 2

The its time for the hight light of the night!!

The Really Awful Dodgers

Having seen in prevuious week themselves be very much in the shade of their 'older siblings' the Really awful Dodgers had seen their role models falter for the first time. How would this influence their performance?

v The Dodgetweeners
Would the Really Awful Dodgers have the 'Will' to beat their first appointments or would they be be slightly 'Jay'ed by the previous weeks performances and late start.? Would any of them adopt my 'Neil'ing technique to help them win?.....and win they did. 'Simon' Obee was very please with the victory.
Thanks Simon for playing this week. I was really struggling to think of a 4th bad pun.

Result: The Really Awful Dodgers 2 The Dodgebetweeners 0
First 2-0 win ever!!!

v Magic
2 wins in a row? Could it be magic, now'?
Unfortunately it was. With their green t-shirts ready for week one and their decent results 'Magic' wouldn't be out of place in the Premier League. The Really Awful Dodgers were in for a tough game and were brought to ground with a bump. Its difficult to write a match report about a game that was over so quickly.

Result: The Really Awful Dodgers 0 Magic 2

v  The Honey Badgers
Let's watch the video again!!
Remeber this team? Remember their one key asset? The guy in the black T-shirt who was a really good catcher?.....No obviuosly not and this week he had changed T-shirts. How dare he!!!!
The Really Awful Dodgers who had played the previous week obviously couldn't remember him. However, this didn't matter so much as we had a ace catcher in our midst in Anton (or Bob) - apologies I haven't quite got to grips with differentialting Laura's friends from each other..
Whichever one it was (bright yellow/greenish T-shirt) pulled off a match turning diving wonder catch.
A hard fought and deserved victory in a very entertaining game against a team of very nice and sporting people. This is what Dodgeball is all about.
Well done. Beers all round.

Result: The Really Awful Dodgers 2 The Honey Badgers 1

v Cojones
A fourth game? Yes that's right. The fixtures computer has been playing up. More to follow on that one.
perhaps those beers weren't a great idea after all. They still had a decent team to play. A night of ups and downs ended in another 2-0 defeat, but hey in a week of ups and down at least they had 2 peaks.

Result: The Really Awful Dodgers 0 Cojones 2

Vi for Victory in the First Battle of Shoreditch

The new venue with its dulled acoustics and new teams has got off to a very civil and gentlemanly start.
Things changed on Wednesday and that's why I call it the 'First' Battle of Shoreditch. There will probably be more. Hopefully not involving us too many times.

It was always going to be an emotional occasion with Vi playing her last ever game as a regular (I'm crossing my fingers for the odd guest appearance) before see returns to Germany. We new it was going to happen but it all seemed to happen so quickly.

However, Alex had brought her Mum to watch so surely we were all going to behave ourselves?!

First up were the Really Awful Dodgers fresh from their first competitive win. Would they build on this achievement?

v Cojones

Looking at the league tables this was going to be the toughest fixture of the night.
The day leading up to the games was spent desperately trying to get a fourth girl to play and thankfully Rachael came up with the goods and Helen Potter answered the call to make her Dodgeball debut at late notice. When we usually approach girls to play the first questions they ask. Does it hurt if I get hit in the face? My usual answer is no and it happens very rarely.
This was to prove entirely false to Helen in the very first minute she received a fast flung ball straight in the head. Staggering around slightly dazed we reassured her that she wasn't out and lived to fight another day. A second ball thrown in her direction took care of that.
This was to set the tone for the match which Cojones took comfortably.

Result: RADs 0 Cojones 2

v The Honey Badgers

Confidence was higher for the first leg of this double header against a team that had yet to win a match.
Easy?!......not so.
It soon became apparent that one of their players was an extremely good catcher. His catching ability good that this match led to the shortest ever career for a ball boy for Honey Badgers. Mine.
Somewhat naively the Honey Badgers asked me to be a ball boy. A decision they were to regret as soon as they started to steer away from the rules. Rather than concentrate on the task in hand I decided to berate the player returning prematurely. I'm sure it was an honest mistake but it was enough for me to realise that it was impossible for me to be a neutral ball boy.
After repeated throws at the master catcher the team quickly sudsided despite there being signs that it was indeed a winnable game.

Result: RADs 0 Honey Badgers 2

v Honey Badgers

"OK guys...remember the tactics. Don't throw at the  guy with the black t-shirt...he's third only good player"
So what happened? It was taken on board for at least one set....but otherwise.

Result RADs 1 Honey Badgers 2

It was over to the Awful Dodgers....but not before a crisis at the new venue. The bar fridge had run out of alcohol!!!!!!!

A swift trip to the off-license over the road soon fixed the problem. However, whilst other teams had the same idea and surepticiously snuck in bottles of San Miguel and Carlsberg (the beverages of choice of 'Bar Fridge' , Andy Davies waltzed in with a carrier bag of Fosters cans. Subtlety has never been his strong point!

The Awful Dodgers

v Schoolgirls & Ball-girls

In what now seems to be our weekly fixture against these guys we were determined to get off to a good start in what was definately the easiest of our fixtures and so it proved. Whereas last weeks game was a closer affair with a bit of early seson rustiness needing to be shaken off. This week proved that experience is a vastly under-rated. Nothing remarkable about this game. We left the excitement for later!

The Awful Dodgers 2 Schoolgirls & Ball-girls 0

v  Ball Out War

Was last weeks victory against the reigning champions a fluke? Au contraire.

The Awful Dodgers 2 Ball Out War 0

v Busted Balls

This match was always going to be a tough game which in all honesty we expected to lose. Buoyed by the previous two wins the momentum was taken through to the first set and in a game that swayed to and fro a couple of lucky breaks sealed the game for us.
A set down and facing a shock defeat Busted Balls had clearly had their feathers ruffled. A couple of 'non-walkers' in the 2nd set led to a change in mood in the set. I decided to get up to my old tricks of 'if you can't beat them, join them' and decided to ignore a hit i knew the referee hadn't seen....Yes...i know its wrong...but!..
This only further enraged the opposition and meanwhile across court Alex was having her own personnel battle with a French bird (now to be forever know as Chuckles) who kept on giving her the bird....shocking stuff. Ultimately the set was lost but the red touch paper had been lit for the final set.
After realising that my presence on court wasn't going to help matters and that I was playing shocking Dodgeball due to the amount of alcohol consumed the decision was taken to withdraw myself from the action.
I'd like to think that the realisation that this was Vi's last ever set for us spurred us onto one of our best ever performances. Well if that's the case. We should have someone leave every week....oh, I think that's already been happening (last season!)
The final set of the evening was secured and Vi left us in a very healthy state TOP OF THE LEAGUE!!!

You'll be glad to know V ialso left with a bottle of Campari in her hand :-)

Awful Dodgers 2 Busted Balls 1

Competition Time: Win a Free Week of Dodgeball for the Awful Dodgers or Really Awful Dodgers.

We've had our badge for nearly a year now but what is the back story behind the picture?

Who is the little fella being apprehended by the bobby? (Name and Surname)

What has he done? Was he innocent or guilty?

Who is his friend? Did the ball connect?

What is the name of the copper? Is he a friendly local rozzer 'just being his job' or is there a darker side to the arrest?

What happened next?

So many questions.

The aim of this competition is to flesh out the legend behind the badge and give a name to each of the characters.

It's time to get creative. The more detail the better the chance you have of winning.

Submit a comment or e-mail entries to: the_awful_dodgers@hotmail.co.uk

Rules:

Competition is open until Tuesday 18th October 2011

Competition is only open to players eligible to play for The Awful Dodgers or The Really Awful Dodgers (i.e. anyone!)

The winner is the person who is credited with naming the main character (the apprehended boy)

Ideas from 'losing' entrants may be 'sampled' without credit to create the best possible back story.

The management reserves the right to choose which team the winner plays their free game for.

No cash equivalent prizes are available.

The 'management' reserves the right to change the rules at any time and generally be a tad biased and a little bit of a control freak.

The management's decision is final.

Awful Dodgers' Fan Club Goes International - Match Report 21st September 2011

 This week's match reports takes a break away from the finer details of any blow-by-blow action and instead turns his sights towards our international fan clubs!.

Why, I hear  you ask? Has Steve gone mad?.....that happened ages ago.

Whilst updating the blog I took sometime out to look at the viewing stats for people keeping track of our adventures. The origin of audience figures were quite revealing.

Ranked 1-5

1. The UK – I’m assuming most of the viewers are London based.
2. U.S.A. – We seem to have a ‘special relationship’ with our friends across the pond. Hardly surprising due to the fact a lot of these viewers are probably searching for the film Dodgeball and spend most of their day on the internet whilst stuffing their faces with donuts.
3. Canada – A far more fit and healthy nation and expected due to the number of Canadians who have represented us over the last year.
4. New Zealand – Again, no shock. It’s nice to know that my friends from my travels are eagerly keeping an eye on our progress.
5. Guadaloupe - ………….GUADALOUPE……WTF! I’d struggle to point it out on a map. Can anyone shed any light on why we’re so big in the French colony of Guadaloupe???!!!

We here at Awful Dodger’s HQ really appreciate every single one of our fans and we feel that it is very important to not become detached from our fan base unlike mainly of the ‘big-time charlies’ who ply their trades in other sporting leagues such as the Barclays English Premier League for starters.

Therefore please find below some facts about Guadaloupe that might help you if you start getting fan mail (or “french-letters”) sent to you from the Caribbean.

1. Guadaloupe is a department of France and therefore part of the European Union. It’s currency is the Euro.
2. In 1493 Christopher Coulmbus is credited with discovering the pineapple on the island (despite the fact the fruit had long been grown in South America) – so therefore without Guadaloupe it could be argued that the song “Agadoo” may have never existed.
3. Famous people of Guadalopean descent include: Footballers: Thierry Henry, William Gallas, Lilian Thuram and Everton’s own permanently injured striker Louis Saha – judging by this list be warned when dealing with the new fans. They can be prone to temper-tantrums.
4. Whilst not in the Guadeloupean style Cayerine Quinol, aka Katrin, is known worldwide as the lip synching icon of the piano-house trio Black Box, who burst on to the Music Scene in the late 80s with songs such as' Ride on Time'. Katrin is, however, a trained singer and she went on to release her own work.

Anyway. That’s enough copy and pasting from Wikipedia. I hope its been enlightening.

Back to the action.

This week the Really Awful Dodgers welcomed plenty of new players to the ranks with debuts for Alastair Hegarty, Jillian Hawker, Mitch Fernandez, Simon Obee, Leila Dukes. It was fair to say they were a totally new.

Thrown into the deep end was another debutant Sean Broughton who made his debut for The Awful Dodgers who were up first.

The Awful Dodger’s

Following last weeks encouraging results, that put us in mid-table, this week was going to determine if we were going to compete for a play-off place of be stuck in yet another relegation battle. It was important that we got off to a good start against the league new-comers:

v School Girls and Ball Girls

It wasn’t a great start to the match against this rookie team and we quickly found ourselves depleted in the first set. However, it became apparent with all new teams that some of them hadn’t completely read the rules! A couple of them threw their wickets away going for silly catches and as soon as the numbers were evened up it wasn’t long before we overpowered them. The 2^nd set was much more of a formality with experience telling as we swept them aside. Sean Broughton proved that he was worthy of promotion straight into the first team by sealing the 2nd set with cricketer's throw that would have run out even the swiftest of batsmen such was its pace and accuracy.
It was good to get this fixture out of the way whilst this team are still green as they clearly have a few dangerous players who will develop over the season and start beating the bigger teams.

Won 2-0

v Ball Out War

Our first big test of the evening against last year’s champions. A team we lost to twice last season. The entire match was keenly fought and could have gone either way. However..Ball out War’s confusion with how to deal with my new tactic of kneeling down and drawing fire meant that we were able to pin their top throwers to the back of the court and make it easier to catch them. This worked a treat with Alex Bono once again making a game turning catch. Before we knew it we’d beaten them! Some shameless targeting of one of their ‘less mobile’ players in the dying seconds of one of the games ensured victory. She wasn’t impressed and stormed off the pitch refusing to shake hands. To be fair the rest of their team took defeat a lot more graciously.

Won 2-0

v Jammie Dodger’s – The Original

After last week’s easy victory against a weakened side it became clear that this week wasn’t going to be as easy. A couple of star players from their previous more successful incarnation as the Jammie Dodger Annihilators were in the starting team and to be feared.

Rightly so. We were wiped off the court pretty comprehensively. The 2^nd set saw some great fighting spirit and we drew level. I then took the decision to keep the subs from the 2^nd set on the bench – including myself and my loyalty was rewarded. The decider swung too and through with some big hitting from their star player ‘Camel Toe’ leading the Jammie D’s through to victory. That was until  a sensational last few seconds where the numbers where swung by a couple of key hits and a great late catch by Richard Djaelani. (Although after discussions in the bar afterwards with the opposition we’re not entirely sure how much he know about it!)

Player of the Week: Richard Djaelani

The Really Awful Dodgers

v Team Merdeboite
With virtually a new line-up the first match of the season for The Really Awful Dodgers was always going to be difficult. Would they be inspired or intimidated by success of their contemporaries?
The inaugural performance proved to be brief but considering the majority of the team had only just met in Bar Kick 2 hours previously it was no surprise they were overpowered by a team that had at least attended a taster session together (although that didn't even help last season's intake!)
The first set was up for grabs and had it not been for a couple of pieces of naivety in the closing moments the result could have been so much different. This match will be remembered most notably by the discovery that we now had a 'club physio' in the squad (an unpaid position - before you get any ideas Sean!)
A mix-up between uni mates Dave J and Andy D left the former with a busted thumb that was to rule him out of the remaining games.
Fortunately, on-site amputation was avoided by the revelation that Sean was a qualified physiotherapist.
We're almost like a proper sports' team now! All we need now is a qualified otolaryngologist to help solve the ongoing drama of Dave Chandler's ear-ache....which is giving me ear-ache! Oh please......anyone???!!!

Lost 2-0

V JustDodging (justgiving.com)
Reeling from the loss of their most experienced and joint most successful player (Dave Jackson - One win ever!). The Really Awful Dodgers lined up for the second game with even lower expectations. That was until they saw the opposition team.
Why not recreate the magic of The Really Awful Dodger's first ever win by popping down to your local primary school, picking out the smallest, girliest girls, lining then up against a wall and then throwing coke cans at them until they cry!

Won 2-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!




The Really Awful Dodgers struggle to deal with the alien concept of VICTORY!!

 v The Artful Dodgers
Drunk on the taste of victory (and Carlsberg and San Miguel) normal services were resumed against a team that I sorely wanted to see put in their place. 'The Artful Dodgers' - how very dare they.
Any sign of flat caps and a second team called The Really Artful Dodgers and I will be instructing the team's lawyers. Do we have any lawyers in the squad??
Our pocket's weren't so much picked during this match. It was more of a mugging in broad daylight with all of our pocket money stolen by the bigger boys. Oh well. Three points on the board was an instant improvement on last season.

Lost 2-0

Player of the week: Simon Obee

Lookalikes 4

Last week's Lookalike was wildly deridided as being even worse than Week 1!

So much so that Andy Davies and David Jackson seen to have taken itupon themselves to make this feature their own.

Please can someone else submit something or there is going to be a theme to this:

Sunmitted by a Mr A. Davies of Wakefield (The North).

David Jackson



Frank Skinner



Team for Wednesday 5th October 2012

Altogether now!

"We are top of the League, I said, we are Top of the league!"

And again:

"We're not bottom of the league, I said, we're not bottom of the league!"

Hah! We may not need Raphi to win our games anymore but heck he's playing this week!!!
(Phew - no John or Richard this week means we're lacking a couple of stars!)

For those of you who pay attention to the fixture list you will notice that we are playing each team 3 times this season. That's right. There will be a re-match v Busted Balls of 'The Battle of Shoreditch' - Alex can't wait!!!

Meet: Bar Kick 1830 if you're really keen!!

The Awful Dodgers start first at 1920 approx.

1. Steven Barrett
2. Alexandra Bono
3. Sean Broughton
4. Raphael Emerich
5. Fred Pearce
6. Tom Stubbs
7. Sarah Tessier (debut)
8. Kyla Winter (may be late)
9. TBC

Fixtures:
v Dodgeball UK Heart-Throbs (Stedder's team of ringers/clients -unfortunately Stedders is in Barbados at the mo so we won't get the chance to kick his arse!)
v Schoolgirls & Ball-Girls (for the 3rd time)
v Busted Balls (once more unto the breach dear friends. Fight, Fight, Fight)

The Really Awful Dodgers start at 2020 approx.

1. Andrew Davies
2. Brandon Davis (debut)
3. Laura Feetham
4. Mitch Fernandez
5. Jill Hawker
6. Alastair Hegarty
7. Rachael Morris
8. Simon Obee
9. TBC

Fixtures:
v The Dodgebetweeners (best chance of a win)
v Magic
v Cojones

One 'El' of a read. Noticeboard: 3rd October 2012

Now that she's found a housemate who can hopefully catch mice and kill Japanese knotweed (at the same time) El is now busy promting her new book.

"Ralph is (not) a Spy"

Available here

A tale of espionage, morse-code cracking, loo paper and hamsters.

The recommended reading age is approx. 6-9 years so its the perfect Christmas present for half of our squad!!!