So last week I went to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and ended up having sex with a blonde hair, blue-eyed Irish lad in a pitch-dark classroom on a ship.
Well, that's the headline anyway.
Ok, so somehow I managed to go all the way to the Netherlands and pull one of the only two Irish people around. Who was very, very nice. And ok, the hair may have been ever-so-slightly more ginger than blonde, he was very cute. And I do go weak at the knees for an Irish accent. As I was sharing a room with two other people, and he with only one other who agreed to give us a bit of time before coming back, we went back to his for some nookie. His hotel was actually an old cruise ship now moored up in Rotterdam harbour. However, he couldn't find his room (I was not taking advantage of his drunkeness anymore than he was of mine) and, whilst wandering round, we managed to find a classroom which was unlocked. Classroom number 4 to be precise. Why an old cruise-ship-now-stationary-hotel had any classrooms, let alone at least 4, is anyone's guess. But the urge took us and so we ended up bonking in there. It would have been strange to turn on the lights and see the tables and whatnot. That and we were worried there might be cctv which only worked on visible light.
Anyhow, after that we did go back to his room and bonk again some more. Quite a bit more actually. And his friend never came back to the room either - apparently he managed to find someone else to stay with.
The reason I was in Rotterdam was for a football tournament. For those of you in the States I mean 'soccer'. It was the Eurogames - one of the European gay tournaments. I lose track of who organises what, there seem to be so many different organising bodies for various different things. For example next year there is a European tournament in Paris, one in Budapest, a World Gay Games in Mexico City along with numerous others. And that's before getting into domestic tournaments.
Anyhow, the bonking meant that I was late turning up for the first day of the tournament. Not silly late - lunchtime as opposed to 9am - but late enough to be penalised by not starting any matches.
This did annoy me a bit actually. Yes, I can understand that I was in the wrong, prioritising my bonking over the football (albeit accidentally - I had set an alarm to be up on time but slept (or maybe bonked) through it). And yes, I do realise that there were some concerns over my wellbeing (although again this was something I had tried to manage by texting a friend, however because of the foreign-country-transfers, that text didn't get there until around 7pm, well after I had already turned up at 1pm). Probably the only time I have ever been castigated for NOT telling people my sexual exploits. But from my point of view I had made the effort to get myself to Rotterdam, and more so to get myself to the tournament on my own, so to penalise me quite so heavily seems very petty. Add to it that as the tournament progresses the matches get "more important" and my involvement becomes more remote, it is all the more essential to play me during the earlier matches to give me any run-out time and penalising me erroded much of the opportunity I would get to play.
The logic goes like this:
1) I am not one of the better players in the team. There are at least 11 people they would rather start before starting me.
2) The early games are 'divisional' games - if you win the game you are awarded points and the team with the most points is highest in the division. If you lose one game, you can probably make up for it by playing-out a stronger team in the next match to ensure a win. Usually in the divisional section of the tournament you can well afford to sacrifice a couple of matches to let your weaker players have a good run-out.
3) Thereafter the tournament goes into either knock-out or placement matches. It is therefore essential to win these - they may either result in you being knocked out of the competition entirely; or they can be the decider between being placed third or fourth.
4) So as the tournament progresses, each match become more and more important, and the better players are so vital that even introducing one slight change - bringing on an ever-so-slightly weaker player back at left-back - can make the team crumble and lead to a loss.
Well, at least that's how it always gets explained to me. You get told that you are still just as vital a part of the team. Your support is vital without which the players wouldn't know why they are playing; that as a 'utility' player (for which read 'just as crap in every position as any other') you are vital to reserve to go on in any position in case any of the base members of the team get injured and no-one else can play that position; that you are vital because the players are too knackered themselves to get their own water. You are 'vital' for all the most mundane (and nonsensical) reasons. The word 'vital' gets used a lot.
Anyhow, so it was that on the first day I did get brought on as substitute for probably a total of 25 minutes. This is out of total playing time for the team of 125 minutes. On the second day I got 45 minutes - almost entirely twice as much, however even more football was played: 160 minutes. On the third day I didn't get to play a single second of the 75 minutes. There were only two games, both of which were 'vital' to achieve a medal placement. The first game was to decide whether we played in the gold-silver match; or whether we played in the bronze-fourth match. We lost so the second game was the bronze-fourth match to decide whether we went away with the bronze medal or nothing. We won bronze.
Now, this should be fantastic. Technically I was a member of the squad that went away a bronze medal winner, which out of twelve teams where we didn't expect to get into the top division was amazing. But personally it was disappointing. Not only had I only played just over 60 minutes of football whilst the squad as a whole played around 360 minutes; not only had I not had a minute of play on the final day, but most importantly I had not had a single second on the pitch in the deciding match. Yes I got a medal, but I didn't really feel I deserved it. Still, no-one need know that and I could take my medal home with me and make my proud (if internally hollow) boast that I had won a bronze medal at the Eurogames.
Of course, matters took a somewhat different turn later on. We all went out to celebrate with our medals. I took mine along not really to revel in the moment, but more in case I could rub it in the face of one of my friends on one of the other teams who didn't win a medal. The others wore their medals all the time but I kept mine mostly in my pocket. Well my friend did come out and I promptly whipped the lanyard for the medal out of my pocket and somwhere along the lines the medal became dislodged and slipped from the security of the metal ring it was on. It flew across the pub and slid discretely under a podium. I tried looking for it - not an easy thing to do in a crowded bar - but ultimately had to give up and abandon hope.
And so - aside from having sex with a blonde hair, blue-eyed Irish lad in a pitch-dark classroom on a ship - that was the story of my Rotterdam tournament: a token gesture of an empty lanyard where the major basis of its existence is actually the empty hole in the centre to put your neck; with nothing of substance to show for at the end of it. What a perfect metaphor.
I might tell people it was actually a gold medal.
Well, that's the headline anyway.
Ok, so somehow I managed to go all the way to the Netherlands and pull one of the only two Irish people around. Who was very, very nice. And ok, the hair may have been ever-so-slightly more ginger than blonde, he was very cute. And I do go weak at the knees for an Irish accent. As I was sharing a room with two other people, and he with only one other who agreed to give us a bit of time before coming back, we went back to his for some nookie. His hotel was actually an old cruise ship now moored up in Rotterdam harbour. However, he couldn't find his room (I was not taking advantage of his drunkeness anymore than he was of mine) and, whilst wandering round, we managed to find a classroom which was unlocked. Classroom number 4 to be precise. Why an old cruise-ship-now-stationary-hotel had any classrooms, let alone at least 4, is anyone's guess. But the urge took us and so we ended up bonking in there. It would have been strange to turn on the lights and see the tables and whatnot. That and we were worried there might be cctv which only worked on visible light.
Anyhow, after that we did go back to his room and bonk again some more. Quite a bit more actually. And his friend never came back to the room either - apparently he managed to find someone else to stay with.
The reason I was in Rotterdam was for a football tournament. For those of you in the States I mean 'soccer'. It was the Eurogames - one of the European gay tournaments. I lose track of who organises what, there seem to be so many different organising bodies for various different things. For example next year there is a European tournament in Paris, one in Budapest, a World Gay Games in Mexico City along with numerous others. And that's before getting into domestic tournaments.
Anyhow, the bonking meant that I was late turning up for the first day of the tournament. Not silly late - lunchtime as opposed to 9am - but late enough to be penalised by not starting any matches.
This did annoy me a bit actually. Yes, I can understand that I was in the wrong, prioritising my bonking over the football (albeit accidentally - I had set an alarm to be up on time but slept (or maybe bonked) through it). And yes, I do realise that there were some concerns over my wellbeing (although again this was something I had tried to manage by texting a friend, however because of the foreign-country-transfers, that text didn't get there until around 7pm, well after I had already turned up at 1pm). Probably the only time I have ever been castigated for NOT telling people my sexual exploits. But from my point of view I had made the effort to get myself to Rotterdam, and more so to get myself to the tournament on my own, so to penalise me quite so heavily seems very petty. Add to it that as the tournament progresses the matches get "more important" and my involvement becomes more remote, it is all the more essential to play me during the earlier matches to give me any run-out time and penalising me erroded much of the opportunity I would get to play.
The logic goes like this:
1) I am not one of the better players in the team. There are at least 11 people they would rather start before starting me.
2) The early games are 'divisional' games - if you win the game you are awarded points and the team with the most points is highest in the division. If you lose one game, you can probably make up for it by playing-out a stronger team in the next match to ensure a win. Usually in the divisional section of the tournament you can well afford to sacrifice a couple of matches to let your weaker players have a good run-out.
3) Thereafter the tournament goes into either knock-out or placement matches. It is therefore essential to win these - they may either result in you being knocked out of the competition entirely; or they can be the decider between being placed third or fourth.
4) So as the tournament progresses, each match become more and more important, and the better players are so vital that even introducing one slight change - bringing on an ever-so-slightly weaker player back at left-back - can make the team crumble and lead to a loss.
Well, at least that's how it always gets explained to me. You get told that you are still just as vital a part of the team. Your support is vital without which the players wouldn't know why they are playing; that as a 'utility' player (for which read 'just as crap in every position as any other') you are vital to reserve to go on in any position in case any of the base members of the team get injured and no-one else can play that position; that you are vital because the players are too knackered themselves to get their own water. You are 'vital' for all the most mundane (and nonsensical) reasons. The word 'vital' gets used a lot.
Anyhow, so it was that on the first day I did get brought on as substitute for probably a total of 25 minutes. This is out of total playing time for the team of 125 minutes. On the second day I got 45 minutes - almost entirely twice as much, however even more football was played: 160 minutes. On the third day I didn't get to play a single second of the 75 minutes. There were only two games, both of which were 'vital' to achieve a medal placement. The first game was to decide whether we played in the gold-silver match; or whether we played in the bronze-fourth match. We lost so the second game was the bronze-fourth match to decide whether we went away with the bronze medal or nothing. We won bronze.
Now, this should be fantastic. Technically I was a member of the squad that went away a bronze medal winner, which out of twelve teams where we didn't expect to get into the top division was amazing. But personally it was disappointing. Not only had I only played just over 60 minutes of football whilst the squad as a whole played around 360 minutes; not only had I not had a minute of play on the final day, but most importantly I had not had a single second on the pitch in the deciding match. Yes I got a medal, but I didn't really feel I deserved it. Still, no-one need know that and I could take my medal home with me and make my proud (if internally hollow) boast that I had won a bronze medal at the Eurogames.
Of course, matters took a somewhat different turn later on. We all went out to celebrate with our medals. I took mine along not really to revel in the moment, but more in case I could rub it in the face of one of my friends on one of the other teams who didn't win a medal. The others wore their medals all the time but I kept mine mostly in my pocket. Well my friend did come out and I promptly whipped the lanyard for the medal out of my pocket and somwhere along the lines the medal became dislodged and slipped from the security of the metal ring it was on. It flew across the pub and slid discretely under a podium. I tried looking for it - not an easy thing to do in a crowded bar - but ultimately had to give up and abandon hope.
And so - aside from having sex with a blonde hair, blue-eyed Irish lad in a pitch-dark classroom on a ship - that was the story of my Rotterdam tournament: a token gesture of an empty lanyard where the major basis of its existence is actually the empty hole in the centre to put your neck; with nothing of substance to show for at the end of it. What a perfect metaphor.
I might tell people it was actually a gold medal.
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