Staff Sports Day

The theme of the week at work has definitely been dossing around; first the Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup party and a long lunch at the brewery on Wednesday, but this afternoon was on a whole other level. A few weeks ago, a circular was sent round by “resident Asian” Alex Tang about the annual staff sports day, for which he was trying to get together a soccer team to represent the Faculty of Science. During one lunch break, I somehow got roped into participating, despite my complete lack of skill and experience on the field. Although I was a little worried about being rubbish at first, I’m so glad I went for it as it was so much fun!

After running a few assays and planning my next week of experiments, I left the laboratory with the others and we made our way over to an oval on the other side of campus. Here, we were given a fetching green Faculty of Science T-shirt (my first UWA memorabilia) by a woman in a dinosaur onesie and directed to find a place in the amphitheatre for the opening ceremony. I was expecting a few blokes turning up for a kick around, but in reality there were over 400 people there to compete for the faculties of Aboriginal Studies, Business, IT, Engineering, Finance, Medicine and Science. As we were welcomed by the university sport coordinator and a representative from beneficiary Guide Dogs WA (yes there were puppies and yes they were adorable), it became clear that soccer  wasn't the only event. There were teams entered into volleyball, badminton, boccia (whatever that is) and loads of fun events like egg and spoon and so on. There was also light entertainment in the form of a kind of linedancing cowboy flash mob before the flame was lit (yep, they take it that seriously) and we were directed to the soccer field.

Raring to go...

The "Beat Roots"

Our dream team consisted of myself, Alex, Ryan, Marcus and Andy from our office, plus Donna (a lovely lady who supervised Charis, one of the Bath students from two years ago), Milly (a research assistant around my age) and Nikitas (a very keen and irritating 57-year-old Greek) from the neighbouring Biochemistry department. As I'd been the first online registration, the admin people had called the team "Stephens Slayers". Cringe! The matches were five minutes each way and 5-a-side, with at least two women on the pitch at all times, which meant no rest for the wicked. After a brief kick about and an intense discussion of tactics that mainly involved "passing to Andy or Marcus at every given opportunity", we were ready for our big four inter-faculty matches. Apart from it being immensely hot and 70% humidity, I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected and I was actually a reasonably capable player! We absolutely trampled the first IT side with Andy scoring an incredible 4 goals, one of which was in the first ten seconds and featured a solid assist from yours truly. The second game against business, however, was a different story. They had that age-old problem of a couple of players taking it way too seriously; one guy in particular, when everyone else was laughing and joking, didn't crack a smile and screamed at his teammates whenever they screwed up. This got out of hand to a bittersweet extent when the same gentleman absolutely crunched Nikitas in a dirty tackle that left him limping off the pitch. After that, the gloves were off and the boys attempted to heckle him as much as possible, most of which he bit at which was hilarious. Sadly, we lost that game 2-1, but it was onwards and upwards with two more games against two more IT sides (they must really like soccer) in which we secured 3-0 and 2-1 victories. Milly scored an absolute pelter in the last game that had us three girls jumping for joy at the power of womankind. Other hilarious moments included Marcus "Messi" Giacci, who'd bigged himself up as potential star player, rolling his ankle before he even got on the pitch and Ryan accidentally smashing into a small, rotund woman and sending her flying.

The announcement of the winners was a painful occurrence. Ourselves and those arseholes business drew first out of eight teams on points, but they beat us by two on goal difference, leaving us the red ribbons. Still, we did incredibly well consider we didn't take it at all seriously! After that, we made our way back to the original field for a complimentary lunch and a bask in the sun as we waited for all the fun events to start. There was a game called Flyes, in which you have to negotiate a course of horizontally placed sticks by old treading once between each pair that Donna and Milly entered. It was no surprise that our friend from the soccer had also entered, but with no half effort: He stepped onto the field in full skins and a second pair of fancy shoes. Even more satisfying when he came second! Next was the 100m, which Marcus and Ryan both made the final of, but sadly didn't bring us back any glory. The same guy was also competing in that, surprise surprise, but got knocked out in Marcus' heat, much to our enjoyment. It also worries me that that man is an academic with that psychopathic attitude...

Our unexpected forté of the day turned out to be the tug of war. Our soccer team, minus an injured Nikitas, took on another science lady to form a formidable 4-man, 4-woman team that worked its way in three rounds to the Grand Final. It can't just be a final in Australia, it has to be grand, and I was very proud of the fact I'd made it to such an event. Our first two face-offs were a piece of cake and the third was an epic battle that saw us use our amazing teamwork to bring home the win after being inches from defeat. In keeping with the day's record, we lost the Grand Final to a finance side, clinching second place once again. It's fine, I like red anyway... We didn't really have a hope in hell, as all four of their guys were over six foot and huge (some not in a good way), whereas bar Andy all our guys are a similar height and build to me. Never mind, it's the taking part that counts after all!

After watching the deans humiliate themselves in a comedy obstacle course, it was time for the closing ceremony. Purely down to the woman in the dinosaur onesie, science won a $300 Myer voucher, but that was about it due to our relatively poor turnout. Lots of different people thanked us all for coming and I got to stroke one of the guide dogs, then it was time to head to the Uni Club for a well-deserved beer. The Uni Club is a very swish, members-only venue with lots of men in suits having lunch, but our participation earned us entry and a Little Creatures Pale Ale went down very nicely indeed. We hung around chatting until 5pm, by which time it was of course way too late to get any more work done! I collected my stuff from the office and rode home just as it was beginning to cool down, nicely exhausted and red-nosed from a day of fun in the sun. With a quiet weekend ahead of me, I plan to enjoy the weather by the pool or at the beach; incidentally, this Friday marks one quarter of my time here gone. How time flies!