Hello all, here is the Copa report for 2006. If you didn’t go, read at your own discretion but be ready to be disappointed if you don’t.We arrived in dribs and drabs over the course of Friday and by 9:30 the Pies had well and truly arrived and so off we set to Nottingham for a slap-up meal to celebrate Phil’s birthday.  We came back in the pouring rain to find a bit of a drinking session going on in the club house and in true Pie style we joined in – naturally! We found a very drunk Silverback team and partied on down. What I remember of that night was everyone had a good time.  Romanie and Lauren tried to take out the opposition with Blavod (Black Vodka) and Ally told bedtime stories of elephants. It could only happen at Copa.Pies awoke on Saturday seeded 25th in the competition and were in a pretty bad way but somehow we made it over to our first game against ‘Bigger Than You’ - a mixture of Jedi, Sheffield and Nottingham people. As the name would suggest – they were bloody tall and so very good at skying us over and over again, they also had some very sweet hucks which caused us lots of problems. However we made hoe stack work very well and scored a respectable 5 points on a team which finished 5th in the tournament.Our next game was against Flange who were seeded first in the whole damn thing.  This, for those of you that went to Jestival, was Thundercats with a Clapham player and a few others, for those that didn’t – it was GB juniors of about 3 years ago.  They were little lax and we traded points with them but then they went and upped the pressure and ran away with the game in the end.  For the call they had made a very cool game of ‘Guess Who’ with their own players as the characters.  Pies will have to go away and practice furiously if we every meet them again as we were terrible at it.The third game of the day was against Randomly Flung who were a good team but beatable. We looked tired and couldn’t quite make the killer passes so they ran away from us and won quite easily.Fourth game was against Lords of the Ring was similar to the previous game and we wished maybe we hadn’t had so much to drink and a instead had a little more sleep.  This game was closer but again we couldn’t beat them and they won by about 2 points I think.Fifth game, yep five games in one day - this was not a tournament to be iron manning, was against Chump Around which pretty much were Warwick Bears.  They were good and we played well making for a well spirited and well fought game but they were to beat us in the end - it was not our day.  We finished off the game with a great call of ‘Street Fighter’ where Taz was hustled by an innocent looking girl who kicked his ass in the final – she had clearly played the game before.We got washed and ready for the nights festivities which included a sumo competition. The Pie girls (Pieletts) showed how they are the ones with all the balls in the club as 4 of them flattened their opponents and progressed with ease through the first few rounds of the competition. Their championship hopes however would have to wait until Sunday night when the final was to take place.  Taz tried to show the Pie boys have what it takes, sadly he got knocked out in the first round - oh dear Taz. After we were to reveal the tournament secret – the Pie costumes! We sprayed our hair green and painted our faces orange and put on the mighty fine Oompa Loompa costumes designed and crafted exclusively by Mrs El Menabawey - I would recommend her skills to anyone.  If you get chance I would really make an effort to see pictures they are ace! Whilst preparing, Pies being the crazy folk that they are, invented the best picture pose ever to grace photographs – ‘pensively gay’. You’ll have to ask Ally for a full description but in basic terms ‘you’re gay and you left the cooker on’.  The costumes were very well received and we got much love from many people including a few of our heroes – one man got down on his knees and claimed not to be worthy - a  very proud moment for some. Lots of people serenaded us with the Oompa song, embarrassing us as they knew all the words and we didn’t – must plan better next year.  Also big shout to the MC who I will definitely be hiring for my 21st - he was ace.We awoke on Sunday feeling just as bad as the morning before with no sleep starting to catch up with some Pies.  We marched over late to our first game to find our opponents no where to be found – seems we weren’t the only ones suffering!  We were to play South Side Syskon which was half of Flyght Club who were actually busy setting up pitches, we started the game late and traded points with them all the way to sudden death and it was Pies who came up trumps.  Our first victory of the tournament and we were very proud.The next game of the day and last pool game was against Random Fling, the other Nottingham Uni team.  We had the better of them as they couldn’t handle the arrow head zone. We won by a few points and so we were off on our winning streak.Our fate was now in the hands of the Tournament Directors as they worked out the pools and decided our new seeding.  We maintained a seeding of 25th and discovered that we were to play Silverbacks. The friendly faces (if you can call the mugs of DP and Geordie friendly) in this team made for a fun contest. We were outclassed by some very disciplined Frisbee but one player from their team told us we had put up one of the best fights of their games so far which was cool and proof we didn’t give up.The loss meant now we could do no better than be in the bottom 16 and the best we could do was win the plate. With this in mind, we played our next game against Randomly Flung for the second time, confident as we had improved a lot since our last meeting.  However once again there were too good for us but they had nice things to say about our zone and with the game over we were done for another day.Sunday night saw the rest of the sumo competition take place. The organisers were obviously worried about Pie domination and so paired the Pieletts against each other.  Rom managed to get to the final but was beaten by Liz - Unlucky Rom, you’re a winner in our eyes.  The other entertainment for Sunday night was a karaoke session which saw a Pie entry from Laurinda and Tazminda who sang ‘Hello’ by Lionel Richie.  It was an excellent and heartfelt performance from Taz not so much so by Lauren, her performance best described as just being bad apart from giving the crowd jip. It was then time that infamous exhibition game which seems to bring out the exhibitionists in everyone and what we were left with was naked Frisbee. Pies were not to have a naked representative this year. As the game fizzled out it was over to the Copa tent where we proceeded to get most of the tent involved in a game of ‘Twat the beer-can against our heads’ or as Paul would say “SUCK IT!! SHAKE IT!! SMACK IT!!”  We played this as some very silly people played ‘lets all get naked’ beside us but the very sensible Pies were having none of this were they – Rom? Jill?  The Pies finally called it a day in the small hours and after making sure Ally was all tucked in nice and tight we all slept soundly wondering what tomorrow would bring.Monday began in the same way as all other Copa mornings – much pain.  Our first game was against was against Fingers 6, we were well up to the task and beat them by a decent margin.  This was a very well spirited game which may come as a surprise but maybe this was because of the lack of a certain member of their team.We then had to play AWT (Awaiting Welsh Translation), initially they ran out in to the lead, with both teams making lots of mistakes that they managed to convert and we didn’t.  We looked once again to the trusty arrow-head, the zone giving them lots of problems which saw us crawl our way back to 6 – 5, they were able to hold out to the buzzer, but only just and we were unfortunate to lose by only the one point, had we had just a little more time it would have been very different, I am sure.Our last game of Copa was against Mental Discs, much to Paul’s delight, we were now playing for 27th place.  The game was a fun one and we won by about 3 or 4 points taking our winning total too 4 in 12 – not too shabby! This game was finished off with another call of Street Fighter which was to later spark a half hour discussion of game rules but it was me, Anthony who rightly won the call.After our final game, all that was left was to watch the final. It was closely fought game between Discuits and Whipscar. Whipscar ‘whipped’ that final point to their favour to win.The presentation confirmed that Pies came 27th and awarded us with best dressed team as well as a special mention for spirit, missing out by one vote. Copa came to a close with a picture of everyone taken by Ozzie. It was taken in three poses, normal, cheering and after Tom Styles put it to the crowd PENSIVE GAY was selected. Ally then got 200 people to pose pensively gay - ‘guys I want you to look gay – but you have left the gas cooker on’. I have never seen him so happy when these 200 people responded.That’s it.Thank so much to all of you that made it what it was I thoroughly enjoyed being your captain, we rocked, the Copa rocked and I can’t wait for next year.So thanks toSamAliceLauren (spell checker)AllyBenmanDaniWonkiePaulPhilRomTazOllyRobinCheersAntxxx