The plot is thickening! Despite running out of budget to advertize our trainings, we still had people finding and joining us every week. Early in August there were times with only 2-3 players… Within a few weeks we had 8 to 10 people attending the trainings.
Some of them are ex-Tiszavirág players, others are completely new to the game.
The first big question we faced was if we should participate in the Tiszavirág’s 6th Budapest Cup. First of all, it was listed as National Championships on the federation’s site, and I would not have wanted The Current to take on a challenge with so high stakes after such a short amount of time. The organizer of the event, András Klima assured us that the tournament is not intended to be an N.C. and we agreed that we set up matches for the 3 Hungarian teams during the fall, meaning enough time for us to get prepared.
The other concern was simply that with 6 people to enlist, the entry fee was beyond my budget and I didn’t want to ask the players to pay for getting their asses kicked. Still, I was hoping that our rookie dad and son duo gets a spot to play and experience the pace of a tournament.
The Orcas helped us out as always and 3 of us got to play with the Serbian team. My plan was that we stay back and use the extra weight to top the defense in front of the goal, but that wasn’t happening much. We often ended up being forward and if we lost the ball, we had trouble getting back in time. Many times I was angry at myself cause the kids were actually showing mad skills and I was the one screwing up attacks not feeling where they are and taking too long to pass. On the other hand, we scored once or twice and were in a great mood. Asked them if they prefer to score with the cost of letting more in or if they prefer to stop more attacks, and they wanted to score of course. Great spirit, they have everything what winning takes! In a couple years these kids grow to be the best just like the youth of Budweis or Türkey did. They are gonna have a finswimming/UWH/UWR training camp with the national youth teams of Türkey in mid September. I hope others will come too to experience the hospitability of the people of Kikinda and learn from each other.
But back to the Budapest Cup! 5 teams registered for the tournament, and the results are:
1. Trelleborg (SWE)
2. Wien (AUS)
3. Tiszavirág (HUN)
4. PFBSE Delfinek (HUN)
5. Orcas (SRB)
Overall, it was a great tournament. I had to be surface ref multiple times and I think the matches were nice and clean. I was worried we’d get crushed by the Swedish team, but as it turned out, they were playing in a gentle and elegant manner and still managed to take the lead.
Loved the penalty tournament, and I have to admit, Moby managed to improve it a lot. Bet you don’t know the origins of this exciting event!
The next morning we’ve set up a training for the Orcas, but only two Currents showed up, so instead of playing I was trying to show what we do for training. Tests and loops, all the hot stuff. I was worried that the journey and the tournament exhausted Stojan’s team but damn these kids are metal!
What’s ahead for The Current? Hard to tell. We ‘re facing our first big challenge. As polo is getting back to the pools with the school season, we were asked to turn to them for training times. Even though the mobile wall makes it possible to split one of the pools to be used by polo and rugby at the same time, we were given one occasion per week when we are to share the diving pool with the Tiszavirág/Dolphins. Huge step down from having 4 trainings a week, but more importantly the given time, Friday night is the least suitable for youth recruiting which would be crucial for development. Furthermore I have doubts if it’s possible to have proper trainings with so many people.
It’s a bit odd to have our fate in the hands of people who are not interested in the growth of the sport , but what can you do? Luckily the management of Hajós is open to solutions to help us to pool time. Gonna keep an eye out for unoccupied spots in the timetable of the pools to restore trainings and keep the sport growing. I’m also hoping that polo will get to know UWR more as we increase publicity and the two sports will get closer to each other… Possibly narrowing the difference between the conditions we operate under.
