This is going to be a bit long one, but if you want the short of it - skip to the final four paragraphs.
I've been in paintball now for 5 years very much on a on and off basis, to say playing paintball has been easy and fun would be a lie.
Its always been one of those sports which has been dictated by others, weather they'd let you played because you were good enough, if others could be bothered to show up because they were short on funds, family issues or paintball politics, we've all been there. I've spent my fair share of sitting on the bench when I felt I was easily good enough to play, paying for team paint when I had only played a point or two at an event, playing on a team that eventully faded into the mists of what could have been. I have so many bad memories of paintball, but something always kept me coming back.
I was genuinely going to stop play paintball in 2012, but thought I should post my thoughts in the Platinum Members section for opinions; http://p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/sometimes-you-think-whats-this-point.143446/ (for those of you privy to this section), as Mike Downing said in response to my thoughts on being involved in paintball - 'You have to be selfish, i've done it before to get my big move to the top, and now i'm doing it again to back away from it all. So forget about the rest, and go where you want to go'. With that said, I took the rest of the 2012 season to find out what I really wanted out of paintball. During this time I played casually at events, towards the end of 2012 I figured out what it was that I loved about paintball, it was the people in paintball! I started realising that it was the social aspect of paintball is what I loved, I have made so many friends, but I didn't actually take the time to know them as well as I should of.
I haven't spent a lot of time in the world of paintball, having only really played 3 seasons within that time at D1, SPL & now at D2 - I felt half decent at shooting people. What I really needed was a team to play for where I could just rock up, chat with people, play some ball and go home with a smile on my face from talking to people, also not forgetting to take some stories back with me to work and to tell work colleagues of the awesome weekend I'd had (I know you've all done it too!).
So the start of this year I started on another team before we went our separate ways. By the time it dawned on me that I had no team, but still felt ready to rock up to events and play one final year before I left for my adventures, I started to get in touch with a few members of the UK paintball scene. Eventually, someone got in touch with Ainsley of the Lucky 15's - as they were looking for players. I knew nothing about the 15's so I asked my close friends in paintball and none of them knew nothing about Ains's attitude to our game or his team, but I knew from the previous years practise that they weren't a bad team to play against. In all fairness Ainsley also asked around the Planet Eclipse guys to see if they knew who I was, none of them really knew as I have always had a low profile. After a quick trials session at Bricket Wood in the cold of Spring, I got taken onto the team (I still have scars on my hand from getting overshot on my mugging run!).
The Lucky 15's Millennium Div 2 squad (2013) is only made up of 2 players from 2012 roster, the main bulk of players are from people who have wanted to get back into paintball from 5 years ago back in their teens when they had no money and little team management. This was a brand new squad, who at the start of the season didn't know if it would be any good or not. Ains wanted to do an entire season in the Millenniums at Div2 and also to enter the team into the Elite Division at the CPPS… ouch
Nevertheless I came along to the teams first outing together at the first event of the CPPS, and I was met by a very fun and ready team, we knew we didn't stand a chance in the elite division, but we also understood that it was a learning curve for the future, to get better we needed to get beat.
I felt that the team performed well at its first outing and said to Ainsley towards the end of the day that I saw no reason why this team could not make it into Div1 back in May.
Unfortunately due to my late arrival, I couldn't make St.Tropez, but as the results show, they didn't even need me! They come back with a 3rd place finish. To say the team was over the moon would be a slight understatement, for a bunch guys that have just been bought together as a team, they did not genuinely think they would do that well.
Bitburg was the first Millennium event that I did manage to play with the 15's. I have bad memories of Bitburg as it has always been a a bad place for me to find wins on any team that I have played on in the past. We did well though, and got through our pre-lim bracket relatively unscathed but still loosing points, we got knocked out during the play offs for 1/2, 3/4. and ended up coming 4th in this event. This was the first time I saw the team perform out at a event away from home. We came away from this event and we evaluated what went wrong. We knew we felt good enough to win, but something held us back.
Campaign Cup was a new event, we trained leading up to this event at the Infamous Clinic at the CPPS - this was the weekend before Campaign.
It must of worked as we blitzed through the prelim games without loosing a point, we played for top 16, top 8, and then top 4 - unfortunately falling at the last hurdle in the game against Mamba Libreville 3-2, we were playing off again for 3rd and 4th. We took what we learnt from learned in Bitberg into the play-offs. With a clear heads, we wouldn't loose our rag in the pits and we would be there for each other. We were there to win and we did, coming 3rd overall at this event - continuing our consistency of performances. But this time we felt stronger, we had only lost 4 points out of the 31 we had played at Campaign.
I had set personal goals at the start of the year, as they do give you that goal;
I have never won an event, ever, and with Bitberg and Basildon being losses, only Paris remained.
I'm not going to lie, I hated the Chantilly field. The first time I got to play on it was at CPPS event 5 and I got shot a lot - so much I had to put my goggles underneath a hose at lunch in order to have clean goggles for the last 2 prelim games. I made personal efforts to make sure that the team would get together one last time before Chantilly. My car broke down so I wasn't able to make this training session, compounding my fears of failing at the last hurdle
Chantilly; We arrived on Thursday, but due to low light by the time we got there, we only get a quick field walk before heading to the hotel and some very undercooked French steaks… well - to the english, well done usually means that I want it slightly crispy around the outside, and not bleeding… So I ordered ribs as as the safest precaution!
Friday was a good day, our first prelim game was a 4-0, the other prelim we played was a 4-1 win. This meant that at the end of the day we were already through to Sunday Club, but we wanted a bit of a lie in as well, so we also had to win our Sat game against the Mexican's, which we did in a 4-1 victory.
I was apparently running in my sleep on Sat night, it could have been the nerves of knowing we'd be facing Mamba Libreville to make it to the top 4 - even though we haven't played our first knockout game to make it there, I knew that chances were pretty high. We arrived nice and early on site Sunday, where we played our first game and won 4-0, lone behold we come up against Mamba Libreville for top 8 knockout game - we needed to perform well to guarantee promotion, this would be our hardest game against a very good team and especially on this field, which I was still not fond of. The game got off to a rocky start with Mamba going 2-1 against us, 2-2, 3-2 and then a recovery to tie the game up at 3-3 with 1:20 something still left on the clock. If any team was going to knock us out, it would have been these guys - but we knew we deserved a win, after the defeat from Campaign against the same team, we did not want to loose this too. The last point started as usual, but we lost a lot of bodies as they played incredibly aggressive at us, shooting everyone out with 20secs left of the clock. They hit the buzzer with the ref's had one of their conferences, the captains were called and Mamba had been caught out for wiping in the last minute of the game - this meant that we had won! So much had happened in those 2 minutes between us coming off the field shot, and the ref's doing their thing - disappointment started racing through my mind, the expressions on peoples faces, how people behaved, the noise of the crowd, but at the end of it, we had won!
Our next game was against a team from Wezler, who we had never played before and therefore had no fear of, we won that game knowing that we had been there 3 times before to fall at this hurdle in the play-offs. We won this game going 3-0 up, and then loosing 2 points before time expired for a 3-2 win, we'd made it to the finals!
The finals were held on the CPL field for the first time and webcasted live as commentated by our very own Shelly Farmer and Richard Pike, this was the time to shine. One of the most exciting finals I could have hoped to play, the support from other Brit teams on the sidelines was amazing, we went 2-0 down, pretty quickly in this games and came back to 2-1 after using our time out, we lost the next point to make it 3-1 to Tehran Datis. With 2:19 we pulled out 3 successive points with 5 alive on the first of those points, 4 alive on the next and 4 alive on the final point to win 4-3 and the Div2 Paris World Cup! We shook hands with the Tehran Datis out on the CPL field where we received a solid round of applause from all the stands. It was one of those amazing things I never thought I would get a chance to experience , we played our hearts out in those final points and it felt good. Double First for Winning the event and Highest ranked Div2 team at the end of the year - amazing.
This is my last season in paintball, so as well as playing I had also been saying some final goodbyes to people including the refs (who told us not to cock up in the finals). I really wanted to enjoy myself and help the team progress into its next stage of growing into a really strong UK team. I have achieved everything that I wanted to this year, I had fun, won and made new friends along the way. The good times have come, and now its time for me to sell all my kit for pastures new. With every item of paintball I get rid of, a little bit of me hurts inside as i realise this is probably not going to happen again. I will always keep that block and green jersey though, this is the only year I can honestly say I have enjoyed playing paintball, due to the people and success that has been achieved. I leave the 15's with a Div1 Millennium spot, and with the belief in the team that SPL is possible if they work hard at it - although it will not be easy with other Brit teams in there like DV8, The Firm & Relentless.
I hope that me writing this a few more people who will look into getting back into playing paintball, or even staying if they were thinking about quitting. Play for fun, a lot more success, happiness and friends seem to come from it. Forget your ego's and remember the enjoyment in what we do, this is such a special sport, in no other game can you bring the pain train down on someone from an inch away to someones head, in no other sport can you look stupid in one photo and cool as hell in the next picture, in no other sport can you make friends around the world.
I leave for my travels next month and 'ballers have already reached a hand of friendship to hook up, help and perhaps ball - We should all be so lucky to have such a fantastic community.
I want to also say special thanks to people, teams and others that have helped out along my way;
Chris Pelling - To the great events of the NSPL out in Reading where great memories remain and to the support offered to Reading Entity 2009-2011
Paul Martin - To continued friendship, sound advice, Reading Entity 2009-2011
Reading Entity (2009) - What a hoot, we tried our hardest wherever we went and felt the world was our oyster, fantastic times
Mark Dale - Helping anyone in UK paintball, anywhere where people will listen
Wendy Auton - The friendly Northerner at Millennium events, she offers many a hug if you're feeling down
Campaign Paintball - The work that you have provided me on weekends to keep me afloat and able to pay bills!
John & Chris of London International Paintball Supplies - Continued support of UK paintball and always fun guys to talk to
The Firm - You guys are alright, thank you for been really supportive of the 15's this year
DV8 - Congratulations on the promotion! Really friendly bunch of lads
Disruption - Thanks for training with the team to help us progress this year, I hope all goes well next year
Planet Eclipse - My LV1 is amazing, I wouldn't have been able to shoot as many people as I have without it, not forgeting the rest of our kit, especially my jersey!
Sandbaggers - Being hilarious to ref
Ainsley Baddeley - Continued support for the Lucky 15's and to UK paintball (you've got to be a brave man/nuts to buy a paintball site and run it), this year could not have been possible if it was not driven by you at the helm, I am truly grateful.
The Lucky 15's - Wow. Good year eh? I hope you guys get to SPL by the time I'm back in the UK, its going to take a lot of hard work and fitness/exercise… that's an awful word isn't it 'exercise' *shudders* You guys have provided me with laughs, banter , hope, disgust, fear of illness and friendship, could not have had a better group of friends to finish playing paintball with.
Photographers - Let's be real guys, we need photos from these guys as proof that we look good at doing something in our lives. Thank you for showing up to events, getting shot, and then not loosing your mind when people ask for free photos, when are you putting those photos up? will they be on tonight? do I look good in any of those photos? No one ever says thanks to you lot!
UK Paintballers - Thanks for smiling!
Right, I'm off to Australia, so I hope you all stay well and I'll see what I can do about bringing some sunshine back… if I come back
I've been in paintball now for 5 years very much on a on and off basis, to say playing paintball has been easy and fun would be a lie.
Its always been one of those sports which has been dictated by others, weather they'd let you played because you were good enough, if others could be bothered to show up because they were short on funds, family issues or paintball politics, we've all been there. I've spent my fair share of sitting on the bench when I felt I was easily good enough to play, paying for team paint when I had only played a point or two at an event, playing on a team that eventully faded into the mists of what could have been. I have so many bad memories of paintball, but something always kept me coming back.
I was genuinely going to stop play paintball in 2012, but thought I should post my thoughts in the Platinum Members section for opinions; http://p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/sometimes-you-think-whats-this-point.143446/ (for those of you privy to this section), as Mike Downing said in response to my thoughts on being involved in paintball - 'You have to be selfish, i've done it before to get my big move to the top, and now i'm doing it again to back away from it all. So forget about the rest, and go where you want to go'. With that said, I took the rest of the 2012 season to find out what I really wanted out of paintball. During this time I played casually at events, towards the end of 2012 I figured out what it was that I loved about paintball, it was the people in paintball! I started realising that it was the social aspect of paintball is what I loved, I have made so many friends, but I didn't actually take the time to know them as well as I should of.
I haven't spent a lot of time in the world of paintball, having only really played 3 seasons within that time at D1, SPL & now at D2 - I felt half decent at shooting people. What I really needed was a team to play for where I could just rock up, chat with people, play some ball and go home with a smile on my face from talking to people, also not forgetting to take some stories back with me to work and to tell work colleagues of the awesome weekend I'd had (I know you've all done it too!).
So the start of this year I started on another team before we went our separate ways. By the time it dawned on me that I had no team, but still felt ready to rock up to events and play one final year before I left for my adventures, I started to get in touch with a few members of the UK paintball scene. Eventually, someone got in touch with Ainsley of the Lucky 15's - as they were looking for players. I knew nothing about the 15's so I asked my close friends in paintball and none of them knew nothing about Ains's attitude to our game or his team, but I knew from the previous years practise that they weren't a bad team to play against. In all fairness Ainsley also asked around the Planet Eclipse guys to see if they knew who I was, none of them really knew as I have always had a low profile. After a quick trials session at Bricket Wood in the cold of Spring, I got taken onto the team (I still have scars on my hand from getting overshot on my mugging run!).
The Lucky 15's Millennium Div 2 squad (2013) is only made up of 2 players from 2012 roster, the main bulk of players are from people who have wanted to get back into paintball from 5 years ago back in their teens when they had no money and little team management. This was a brand new squad, who at the start of the season didn't know if it would be any good or not. Ains wanted to do an entire season in the Millenniums at Div2 and also to enter the team into the Elite Division at the CPPS… ouch
Nevertheless I came along to the teams first outing together at the first event of the CPPS, and I was met by a very fun and ready team, we knew we didn't stand a chance in the elite division, but we also understood that it was a learning curve for the future, to get better we needed to get beat.
I felt that the team performed well at its first outing and said to Ainsley towards the end of the day that I saw no reason why this team could not make it into Div1 back in May.
Unfortunately due to my late arrival, I couldn't make St.Tropez, but as the results show, they didn't even need me! They come back with a 3rd place finish. To say the team was over the moon would be a slight understatement, for a bunch guys that have just been bought together as a team, they did not genuinely think they would do that well.
Bitburg was the first Millennium event that I did manage to play with the 15's. I have bad memories of Bitburg as it has always been a a bad place for me to find wins on any team that I have played on in the past. We did well though, and got through our pre-lim bracket relatively unscathed but still loosing points, we got knocked out during the play offs for 1/2, 3/4. and ended up coming 4th in this event. This was the first time I saw the team perform out at a event away from home. We came away from this event and we evaluated what went wrong. We knew we felt good enough to win, but something held us back.
Campaign Cup was a new event, we trained leading up to this event at the Infamous Clinic at the CPPS - this was the weekend before Campaign.
It must of worked as we blitzed through the prelim games without loosing a point, we played for top 16, top 8, and then top 4 - unfortunately falling at the last hurdle in the game against Mamba Libreville 3-2, we were playing off again for 3rd and 4th. We took what we learnt from learned in Bitberg into the play-offs. With a clear heads, we wouldn't loose our rag in the pits and we would be there for each other. We were there to win and we did, coming 3rd overall at this event - continuing our consistency of performances. But this time we felt stronger, we had only lost 4 points out of the 31 we had played at Campaign.
I had set personal goals at the start of the year, as they do give you that goal;
- Help the 15's get promotion
- Win an event
I have never won an event, ever, and with Bitberg and Basildon being losses, only Paris remained.
I'm not going to lie, I hated the Chantilly field. The first time I got to play on it was at CPPS event 5 and I got shot a lot - so much I had to put my goggles underneath a hose at lunch in order to have clean goggles for the last 2 prelim games. I made personal efforts to make sure that the team would get together one last time before Chantilly. My car broke down so I wasn't able to make this training session, compounding my fears of failing at the last hurdle
Chantilly; We arrived on Thursday, but due to low light by the time we got there, we only get a quick field walk before heading to the hotel and some very undercooked French steaks… well - to the english, well done usually means that I want it slightly crispy around the outside, and not bleeding… So I ordered ribs as as the safest precaution!
Friday was a good day, our first prelim game was a 4-0, the other prelim we played was a 4-1 win. This meant that at the end of the day we were already through to Sunday Club, but we wanted a bit of a lie in as well, so we also had to win our Sat game against the Mexican's, which we did in a 4-1 victory.
I was apparently running in my sleep on Sat night, it could have been the nerves of knowing we'd be facing Mamba Libreville to make it to the top 4 - even though we haven't played our first knockout game to make it there, I knew that chances were pretty high. We arrived nice and early on site Sunday, where we played our first game and won 4-0, lone behold we come up against Mamba Libreville for top 8 knockout game - we needed to perform well to guarantee promotion, this would be our hardest game against a very good team and especially on this field, which I was still not fond of. The game got off to a rocky start with Mamba going 2-1 against us, 2-2, 3-2 and then a recovery to tie the game up at 3-3 with 1:20 something still left on the clock. If any team was going to knock us out, it would have been these guys - but we knew we deserved a win, after the defeat from Campaign against the same team, we did not want to loose this too. The last point started as usual, but we lost a lot of bodies as they played incredibly aggressive at us, shooting everyone out with 20secs left of the clock. They hit the buzzer with the ref's had one of their conferences, the captains were called and Mamba had been caught out for wiping in the last minute of the game - this meant that we had won! So much had happened in those 2 minutes between us coming off the field shot, and the ref's doing their thing - disappointment started racing through my mind, the expressions on peoples faces, how people behaved, the noise of the crowd, but at the end of it, we had won!
Our next game was against a team from Wezler, who we had never played before and therefore had no fear of, we won that game knowing that we had been there 3 times before to fall at this hurdle in the play-offs. We won this game going 3-0 up, and then loosing 2 points before time expired for a 3-2 win, we'd made it to the finals!
The finals were held on the CPL field for the first time and webcasted live as commentated by our very own Shelly Farmer and Richard Pike, this was the time to shine. One of the most exciting finals I could have hoped to play, the support from other Brit teams on the sidelines was amazing, we went 2-0 down, pretty quickly in this games and came back to 2-1 after using our time out, we lost the next point to make it 3-1 to Tehran Datis. With 2:19 we pulled out 3 successive points with 5 alive on the first of those points, 4 alive on the next and 4 alive on the final point to win 4-3 and the Div2 Paris World Cup! We shook hands with the Tehran Datis out on the CPL field where we received a solid round of applause from all the stands. It was one of those amazing things I never thought I would get a chance to experience , we played our hearts out in those final points and it felt good. Double First for Winning the event and Highest ranked Div2 team at the end of the year - amazing.
This is my last season in paintball, so as well as playing I had also been saying some final goodbyes to people including the refs (who told us not to cock up in the finals). I really wanted to enjoy myself and help the team progress into its next stage of growing into a really strong UK team. I have achieved everything that I wanted to this year, I had fun, won and made new friends along the way. The good times have come, and now its time for me to sell all my kit for pastures new. With every item of paintball I get rid of, a little bit of me hurts inside as i realise this is probably not going to happen again. I will always keep that block and green jersey though, this is the only year I can honestly say I have enjoyed playing paintball, due to the people and success that has been achieved. I leave the 15's with a Div1 Millennium spot, and with the belief in the team that SPL is possible if they work hard at it - although it will not be easy with other Brit teams in there like DV8, The Firm & Relentless.
I hope that me writing this a few more people who will look into getting back into playing paintball, or even staying if they were thinking about quitting. Play for fun, a lot more success, happiness and friends seem to come from it. Forget your ego's and remember the enjoyment in what we do, this is such a special sport, in no other game can you bring the pain train down on someone from an inch away to someones head, in no other sport can you look stupid in one photo and cool as hell in the next picture, in no other sport can you make friends around the world.
I leave for my travels next month and 'ballers have already reached a hand of friendship to hook up, help and perhaps ball - We should all be so lucky to have such a fantastic community.
I want to also say special thanks to people, teams and others that have helped out along my way;
Chris Pelling - To the great events of the NSPL out in Reading where great memories remain and to the support offered to Reading Entity 2009-2011
Paul Martin - To continued friendship, sound advice, Reading Entity 2009-2011
Reading Entity (2009) - What a hoot, we tried our hardest wherever we went and felt the world was our oyster, fantastic times
Mark Dale - Helping anyone in UK paintball, anywhere where people will listen
Wendy Auton - The friendly Northerner at Millennium events, she offers many a hug if you're feeling down
Campaign Paintball - The work that you have provided me on weekends to keep me afloat and able to pay bills!
John & Chris of London International Paintball Supplies - Continued support of UK paintball and always fun guys to talk to
The Firm - You guys are alright, thank you for been really supportive of the 15's this year
DV8 - Congratulations on the promotion! Really friendly bunch of lads
Disruption - Thanks for training with the team to help us progress this year, I hope all goes well next year
Planet Eclipse - My LV1 is amazing, I wouldn't have been able to shoot as many people as I have without it, not forgeting the rest of our kit, especially my jersey!
Sandbaggers - Being hilarious to ref
Ainsley Baddeley - Continued support for the Lucky 15's and to UK paintball (you've got to be a brave man/nuts to buy a paintball site and run it), this year could not have been possible if it was not driven by you at the helm, I am truly grateful.
The Lucky 15's - Wow. Good year eh? I hope you guys get to SPL by the time I'm back in the UK, its going to take a lot of hard work and fitness/exercise… that's an awful word isn't it 'exercise' *shudders* You guys have provided me with laughs, banter , hope, disgust, fear of illness and friendship, could not have had a better group of friends to finish playing paintball with.
Photographers - Let's be real guys, we need photos from these guys as proof that we look good at doing something in our lives. Thank you for showing up to events, getting shot, and then not loosing your mind when people ask for free photos, when are you putting those photos up? will they be on tonight? do I look good in any of those photos? No one ever says thanks to you lot!
UK Paintballers - Thanks for smiling!
Right, I'm off to Australia, so I hope you all stay well and I'll see what I can do about bringing some sunshine back… if I come back
