Nottingham Games 2008

For the Nottingham Games, Singaporean and Malaysian students from all around the United Kingdom gathered in Nottingham to participate in various sporting competitions. This year, Bristol’s girls took part in netball and the guys took part in the soccer and table tennis matches.

In order to catch the morning coach at five, we had to wake up a ghastly hour—four a.m. We turned out to be an hour early for the day’s events, but in spite of that, we were all energetic and in high spirits. We used our spare hour sitting in the coach, chatting and going over game rules and strategies for netball since we were all new to the game as a competitive sport and had never trained as a team before. An hour later, other teams from the other universities began to arrive at the Nottingham sports centre, and some of us even got to see our Singaporean friends. The mood was grand and we were all feeling ebullient.

Considering it was our first time playing netball together, we were considerably nervous. Our nerves were partly exacerbated by the fact that we had only seven players—the required size for a team, with no reserves. The pressure was on! We played against the teams from Warwick and Manchester universities, whose players were mostly from national netball teams. We played our best and our hardest, but were ultimately beaten by our competitors’ honed skills, conceding several goals. Nonetheless, Wensi was our heroine of the day with her point against Manchester late in the day. Although we lost by an admittedly large margin, we still had a blast, and were not embarrassed to be defeated by such experienced players.

spot our CENTRE player and her bib!:D

After the netball matches we carried bags of chips and went over to watch the guys’ team play soccer (5 a-side) against Hull University. Mid-match, the weather took a turn for the worse, and it started to drizzle intermittently. However, with irrepressible spirit, our guys played on resiliently and managed to score several goals. Paul even scored a penalty point! The competing teams were all extremely strong, and unfortunately, we were defeated yet again despite our valiant efforts.

We bid our friends goodbye after the event was over, and some of us were overcome by nostalgia for the good ol’ days back home. When we returned to the coach, we felt slightly drained but also thrilled by the day’s action. Chris, our lovely coach driver, was a comforting presence as he drove us back to Bristol. By the end of the day, we were tired and hungry, but the morning’s ebullience still showed on our faces.