The Funky Site

Since leaving university in 1996, I've been playing Ultimate, a fast paced team game played with (surprise, surprise) a flying disc. It's still decidedly a minority game, but with over 250 teams registered in the UK alone, there's always a game going on somewhere. I started playing for an Oxford based team, the Oxford Sharks, which served as a great introduction to the UK scene.

After a couple of years, I helped start a local university team with my best friend. We formed the Kingston Kniggets, in homage to Monty Python! The team only played together for just under two years before disbanding, mainly due to the captain leaving University to pursue other interests.

One advantage of being such a small sport is that those who play tend to be fairly fanatical, and hence friendly to other players, even ifthey're complete strangers. For this reason it's a great sport to play if you travel around, as you'll always have a welcome in town and an introduction to a social scene. This is exactly what happened when Sarah and I travelled to Australia - we found Ultimate being played in Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam, as well as in all the big towns in Australia.

Whilst living in Melbourne for five months, we played in the Ultimate league and played for the same team - Sharp. The team started well, and as the season continued our play improved. We made the final that season, and in a thrilling game lost 11-10. Doh! The team from right to left - Hunter, ??, Kelly, ??, ??, Ed, Sarah, ??, ??, Belinda.

Moving on (after immigration caught up with Sarah and her working holiday visa) to Syndey, we found ourselves living very near the practive fields for the south shore league.