Dodgeball and Medsin team up for World Aids Day

On Thursday 2nd December, Medsin Imperial and the Dodgeball Club collaborated to organise the biggest charity Dodgeball tournament Imperial has ever seen with prizes including a £50 bar tab at B@1 for the winning team. Over £200 was raised and donated to World Aids Day to combat HIV/AIDS.

The teams were split into four groups and with each group playing a round robin to determine the top two teams, who would then go through to the Quarter Finals. Each match consisted of three games, where each game lasted two minutes.

Group A saw Team Asian Domination truly live up to their name and come through first in their group, followed by Small Men in Big Black Ties. Group B was overrun by teams from student halls with The Wilsonites and Weeks & Garden coming out on top. Group C was nicknamed the Group of Death, containing Royal Hollowballs (Royal Holloway University Dodgeball Team) and IC Handball Club’s team, La Grand Mouton. The handballers were quick to point out that, in their opinion, Dodgeball was merely Handball for “disabled” people. So much for political correctness! Both these teams comfortably qualified along with group D’s Beach Wolverines and The Sabb Reapers, a team primarily made up of the Union Sabbaticals and including Union President, Alex Kendall.

The Quarter Finals were a tense affair with some brilliant Dodgeball on display. Weeks & Garden comfortably dispatched Asian Domination. They were efficiently organised and run by their team captain, Tom Peake, who implemented many advanced Dodgeball tactics he’d picked up playing for IC Dodgeball’s first team only last week. The Sabb Reapers were knocked out by Royal Hollowballs in a thoroughly one-sided affair but not without its surprises with both Heather Jones and Naida Dzigal making kills to ensure they weren’t whitewashed. The Wilsonites saw off Small Men in Big Black Ties by three games to nil. The Beach Wolverines ended Le Grand Mouton’s run with a three nil win but not without plenty of bruises and one set of sore genitalia as the Handballers put their blistering ball throwing abilities to good use. They could not, however, come out on top against the Wolverines’ organisation and experience.

In the Semi Finals, we enjoyed a thriller between Wilsonites and Weeks & Garden. Wilsonites, captained by Scott Esnouf, matched W&G’s tactical awareness but went ahead due to some huge throwing and great counter-attacking play. W&G gave themselves hope by winning Game 2 and drawing Game 3 when the Wilsonites started to employ some very negative tactics; they threw only one of the two balls they had possession of for most of the game. But they went on to lose the next two games and go out, albeit with their dignity still very much intact. In the other semi, the Beach Wolverines came up against Royal Hollowballs. Cheered on by the Imperial crowd and captained by Benjamin Bell, the Wolverines put to use their good balance of consistent throwers and skilful catchers. The Hollowballs could not keep possession of any balls and were being picked off in the first two games. They then fought back and managed a draw and a win in the next two. Wolverines finished them off however, ending up with a 3-1 win. The Hollowballs went on to win to third place playoff comfortably over W&G.

The best–of–seven final was an exhilarating match to watch. The Wilsonites took the first game against a tiring and lacklustre Wolverines. This was perhaps partly due to Alan Soltani’s idea to complete his costume by changing from his trainers into flip-flops, which happened to be somewhat impractical. Wolverines then regained their form and took the next 3 games albeit not without a fight. Wilsonites brought one back but the Wolverines went on to see them off 4-2 and win the tournament.

We’d like to thank everyone who helped organise the tournament and all those who entered. We believe it was a thorough success and both Medsin Imperial and the IC Dodgeball Club gained a great deal of exposure. We hope the money raised can make a difference somewhere.

Look out for another potential tournament next term in collaboration with RAG!