Little known fact, the women’s basketball team actually exists. Another little known fact, after just one practice we managed to scrape enough skills together in our first match, to thrash the Strand Poly 1sts. This year there are a mixture of 13 postgrads, undergrads and general-course students from all corners of the planet donning the stunning purple and white uniform. Our coach, teaching us his wisdom of the game, is the fabulous “v-cranberry” Paul, all the way from Ursinus College in Pennsylvania.
For our first game we arrived at the courts in the beautiful Brixton to find a gaggle of girls sitting around chatting. First thought: oh dear they brought cheerleaders. Turns out they just had 498291 girls on one team to intimidate us- well, that plan failed. Little did they know that we had a trick up our sleeves: man-to-man defence. Normally this would be a standard bball move, though with them not being used to us ‘manning up’, in addition to their constant zone, we were easily 5 baskets up by the last quarter.
After the first game win the team headed out to the Tuns dressed as prehistoric humans to celebrate. A few sambucas, bunny game failures, ducky fuzz and a deserted Quad later the girls + coach + a few from the men’s team headed to Zoo Bar. Standard messyness and more sambucas followed, including a few interesting photos which didn’t make it on facebook…yet. The honorary 99p team bone was almost lost amongst the masses of half naked bodies, though it was later recovered in one piece by Miiiichele.
With the bone in safe hands, and a newly found pair of very attractive black and white glasses, the team dispersed home.
In a similar sporting manner a week later Queens were thrashed at an LSE “home” game (“home being the stunning Hackney), thanks to some powerful yet graceful layups by the girls resulting in free throws. Tension arose as a girl on the opposing team decided to question the ref’s foul calls, the ref in return threatened everyone with a technical foul. “Big man” postgrad Sarah’s matrix-style air jump/fall slamup amazed all, she managed to somehow end up almost upside down mid-air and fall, without injury.
Kat’s three pointer was equally as impressive, having the girls on the bench cheering like hyenas. In the end the girls beat the queenies by ten point. This brought us a step closer to bringing down the monarchy: Kings, Queens… next up is Royal Holloway on November 7th.
Last Wednesday’s pissup at the Tuns and at Zoo was also a ‘ripping’ experience for many. The girls were all happy to see that Kendall had returned from the depths of swineville, ready for a night of alcoholism fun. The team dressed up as basketball/80s zombies, including fake blood and ripped shirts. We sat down to play another strange American drinking game taught to us by Shea, who had some fabulously real looking zombie bruises on show. The mandatory ‘Kings Cup’ was also played, and that damn green goblin along with the ‘no pointing’ rule got everyone in the end.
As the number of drunkards at the Tuns dwindled it was obviously time to head to the general place of sweaty cramped migration. Captain numero uno Jules kindly shared her free cocktail jug with the girls, who lapped it up like puppies. Again the men’s team made a poor show, though their ‘late tipoff’ excuse was valid, we expect to see more of them out next time.
Finally at around 2:30AM the remaining zombies emerged out of the depths of Zoo looking like hit and run victims, with fake blood EVERYWHERE and virtually non-existent tshirts/dental-floss hanging off of their necks. When you come home with objects that don’t belong to you and are almost naked- you know you’ve had a good night, thanks girls.
