Old Paintball teams
- Thread starter longy
- Start date
First post, and the reason I joined this forum - Saw various posts about various tourneys and teams and I often wondered what happened to The Short Timers, NWC, Preds and so on. I got into Paintball in 1988, until a few years ago I had every issue of the two UK magazines (Was it Paintball UK, and Paintball Express I think) use to love reading the site reviews, when all the sites were going up and for a long time I had a whole folder full of every site they ever covered. I chucked the lot out when I moved house. When the Tournament scene took off I played for a team called The Young Guns (We were average but had a lot of fun) for a while and subbed on some other teams when they were a player short, here and there. I also went on to work at this indoor paintball site in Kilburn in North London. I left that around 1991 or 92. I got out of Paintball all together not long after what was called in the PB press at the time as 'The Day of Shame' when someone unloaded a load of paint at the nurses accommodation next door to the newly opened hospital paintball site, which lasted all of two weeks and then it was closed after that incident. It seemed to me that incident co-coincided with other things happening. Around that time there were so many people trying to do good things for the hobby with the Federation etc and teams going to play internationally, but that also co-coincided with some pretty highly published incidents of cheating and a couple of nasty punch ups at tourney's one of which I personally witnessed at a car park. The other thing thing that became inevitable was the arms race, and the games went from tactical skill, to 'lay down as much paint as you can with the biggest gun you can afford' That was it for me with Paintball, when it stopped becoming fun, it was time to stop. The last tournament I was in, I can recall we played against a relatively new team called 'The Interceptors' who had a couple of really classy players. Teams like Preds, Zone Troopers all with their cool helmets and souped up splat masters, god those guys dug in and really played a hell of a good game, they were legends to us younger teams and it was always weird when you met them and it was like anything else, some were really friendly and approachable (Robbo, Steve from Short Timers, Rafe) and some were aloof and full of self importance.
I met various people over tourneys / games and site visits, including yourself Robbo and we had a good chat about the game at one Tournament though can't even remember if I even told you my name at the time. I think it was at Ongar in Essex when my team mate fired a ball right into the middle of everyone while he was cleaning his gun (that went down well) I also met Steve from the Short timers on several occasions and Longy on the big game (See below) and at a couple of Tourneys, I often got the two of them mixed up. Other names who were big at the time like Rafe and Bart were always kind of revered by us younger new comers (Rafe shot me in the one game I remember playing against BSS) There were a lot of great personalities back then and people really doing their best for the hobby, sadly there were a lot of people ripping people off too including the person who sold me and my mate my first piece of **** gun which had a faulty valve at the first big game, so I had to buy a replacement part to play. (I managed to get the gun changed back at the shop when the prat wasn't there)
I had a bad accident in 2004 which left me with some memory loss, so quite a bit is pretty hazy for me I'm afraid.
I saw a couple of comments from Longy earlier whom I remember well, though not sure if he will remember me, however this incident might ring a few bells for him. I was playing on the second BIG GAME (Remember those?) Organised at the ex RAF base. I was with a mate, we were the only two people at the game not from a team, as far as I remember. My mate and I had brought walkie talkies which we figured might be quite useful, so he took the right flank and I went with a load of guys on the left. Longy, me and a couple of others moved to the edge of this hangar when the whole attack seemed to have got bogged down and there was some big tactical discussion going on about how to move forward in one of the buildings, it was at this point that I noticed in what was the massive area of open ground an old overgrown AA bunker but it was about 100 meters away. I turned to Longy and said 'I reckon we could make that mate and outflank the entire other side who had chosen to push on the middle and were long balling us from quite a way away. Everyone else was like 'No mate its too far' - I said 'bollocks to that!' and I just legged it all the way over. Shouted back to everyone's astonishment 'See, ****ing easy' At this point Longy legged it over to me, and the rest followed him, I called my mate on the radio, and the whole team all shifted to the left side. At this point we pushed the other team all the way back to their spawning point, I guess you would call it, it was at that point that Longy shot Wildman and I remember this most distinctly him saying as he came past us with his hands up 'Oh look its the man with the Golden Gun' That was well funny. They had to restart the game because we were so close to the other side, we were just wasting their players as soon as they came out.
Cheers for some good times lads. That's just my insight into what it was like for me.
I met various people over tourneys / games and site visits, including yourself Robbo and we had a good chat about the game at one Tournament though can't even remember if I even told you my name at the time. I think it was at Ongar in Essex when my team mate fired a ball right into the middle of everyone while he was cleaning his gun (that went down well) I also met Steve from the Short timers on several occasions and Longy on the big game (See below) and at a couple of Tourneys, I often got the two of them mixed up. Other names who were big at the time like Rafe and Bart were always kind of revered by us younger new comers (Rafe shot me in the one game I remember playing against BSS) There were a lot of great personalities back then and people really doing their best for the hobby, sadly there were a lot of people ripping people off too including the person who sold me and my mate my first piece of **** gun which had a faulty valve at the first big game, so I had to buy a replacement part to play. (I managed to get the gun changed back at the shop when the prat wasn't there)
I had a bad accident in 2004 which left me with some memory loss, so quite a bit is pretty hazy for me I'm afraid.
I saw a couple of comments from Longy earlier whom I remember well, though not sure if he will remember me, however this incident might ring a few bells for him. I was playing on the second BIG GAME (Remember those?) Organised at the ex RAF base. I was with a mate, we were the only two people at the game not from a team, as far as I remember. My mate and I had brought walkie talkies which we figured might be quite useful, so he took the right flank and I went with a load of guys on the left. Longy, me and a couple of others moved to the edge of this hangar when the whole attack seemed to have got bogged down and there was some big tactical discussion going on about how to move forward in one of the buildings, it was at this point that I noticed in what was the massive area of open ground an old overgrown AA bunker but it was about 100 meters away. I turned to Longy and said 'I reckon we could make that mate and outflank the entire other side who had chosen to push on the middle and were long balling us from quite a way away. Everyone else was like 'No mate its too far' - I said 'bollocks to that!' and I just legged it all the way over. Shouted back to everyone's astonishment 'See, ****ing easy' At this point Longy legged it over to me, and the rest followed him, I called my mate on the radio, and the whole team all shifted to the left side. At this point we pushed the other team all the way back to their spawning point, I guess you would call it, it was at that point that Longy shot Wildman and I remember this most distinctly him saying as he came past us with his hands up 'Oh look its the man with the Golden Gun' That was well funny. They had to restart the game because we were so close to the other side, we were just wasting their players as soon as they came out.
Cheers for some good times lads. That's just my insight into what it was like for me.
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Thought id just tack onto this as since the Old Skool 7 Man has started a whole load of paintball players have been let out (supervised of course) to cause mayhem and fill all the bins with full colostomy bags and phlegm
Its a little like going back in time, although you'd have to almost close your eyes and squint hard to miss the wrinkles and grey hair. (that's if they even have some now).
the original question was : what's happened to all those old teams?
well most of the players have grown up and retired, sorry I meant to say found more important stuff like kids and marriage. Getting a life and generally having a good time.
The rest of us are now playing in the excellent Old Skool 7 man, If you come along to the next tournament, as you park up between the buses from the retirement homes and the Ambulances on call. You will be amazed one by the smell and two by how many have started playing again.
As for what happened to the Preds, well I'm playing with my mates in Team Blow. .
Marcus, Bart, Dave Twizz and Steve are all in Dark Posture. Sid has also played this year. As for the others, its not my place or business to tell. but I still see some of them.
Best Regards
Martin (Corporal) Billings
Although I have since been promoted to Sergeant......
Its a little like going back in time, although you'd have to almost close your eyes and squint hard to miss the wrinkles and grey hair. (that's if they even have some now).
the original question was : what's happened to all those old teams?
well most of the players have grown up and retired, sorry I meant to say found more important stuff like kids and marriage. Getting a life and generally having a good time.
The rest of us are now playing in the excellent Old Skool 7 man, If you come along to the next tournament, as you park up between the buses from the retirement homes and the Ambulances on call. You will be amazed one by the smell and two by how many have started playing again.
As for what happened to the Preds, well I'm playing with my mates in Team Blow. .
Marcus, Bart, Dave Twizz and Steve are all in Dark Posture. Sid has also played this year. As for the others, its not my place or business to tell. but I still see some of them.
Best Regards
Martin (Corporal) Billings
Although I have since been promoted to Sergeant......
Sorry for the interruption , but is this Mo I was talking to at Oxford last week ? ( also in Army )
If not ?? Mo and I had a good chat about Team Preds.
If not ?? Mo and I had a good chat about Team Preds.
Sorry. Not the same person . Nice to hear you had a good talk about my old team tho......
" Mo " was telling me all about how he enjoyed playing as a Pred and being part of the Team,
didn`t need to question him as he was with a whole bunch of Army guys that came and did a Woodsball game, and that HE was the Main Man of the bunch. also it seemed he was the only one that knew what he was doing, he`s part of the Bomb Disposal Squad at Didcot,
Maybe you remember him ??
didn`t need to question him as he was with a whole bunch of Army guys that came and did a Woodsball game, and that HE was the Main Man of the bunch. also it seemed he was the only one that knew what he was doing, he`s part of the Bomb Disposal Squad at Didcot,
Maybe you remember him ??
Hi Bluey.
Never heard of him......
The only army guys we ever had was Eric and Jimmy. and they were American . And Phil Ham, he was Bomb squad. But that was years ago (more than 20 in fact.)
Sounds like a bull****ter.
And if he is in the army now.. How old was he 16 years ago ???
Cheers anyway
Martin
If everyone who said they were in the preds were actually in the preds then we would have had hundreds of team members.
I was actually talking to a guy at mayhem abridge once last year and I spotted a kid about 20 wearing a pred top, I asked him where he bought it and he told me that he was in the preds for years, bearing in mind that he was 20 I didn't say anything or tell him I was in the preds, but I just smiled and walked away.
well, not excusing them, but Marcus did bring the preds back in (I'm guessing) 2004, and played a whole season of the PA League as the Predators.
now, I know they weren't the preds, but all those guys could say they played for the team if they wanted to.
i know what you are going to say to that though!
now, I know they weren't the preds, but all those guys could say they played for the team if they wanted to.
i know what you are going to say to that though!