Purplegoo reports on the 2012 Eurobowl, in which he was annoying:

This past October, I was lucky enough to play in the 8^th Eurobowl tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Eurobowl is an eight man team tournament held every year in which there is not a NAF World Cup. Each team is representative of a European country, and each nation has a slightly different system for selection. English coaches select a captain through a democratic vote from the pool of coaches that have previously attended a Eurobowl , and then he goes on to select a team based on his opinion of English coaches’ participation, contribution and gaming skill.

2010/12 England captain Paul Gegg (Geggster) had asked me to play for our team, so excitedly I took my Lizardmen to Denmark for the competition. England were defending Champions, and we were to do our best to retain our title!

Last year, the event was played over 7 rounds and an impressive 14 teams arrived to play for the title; Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales, Scotland, France, Italy (to date, the most successful team, winning three Eurobowls), Spain, German, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium. There was also a singles side event for those not lucky enough to play for their national team, so approximately 130 Blood Bowl coaches were looked after by fantastic Danish hosts for a cracking weekend of gaming and revelry.

For rules fans amongst you; individually there was a point for a win, half a point for a tie, and an extra point for a team victory on offer every round. Games were decided on a Swiss within Swiss basis.

We arrived in Copenhagen on the Thursday or Friday of the weekend, the organising committee had arranged chalets in a campsite near to the venue. After some culture and a responsible amount of alcohol (!) shared with our European friends, we all met up at the venue, a school in the suburbs.

That photo may look blurred, but I’ve now got an application on my phone that allows pictures to look as drunk as you were at the time… Anyway, (left to right) KFoged, Tripleskulls, Casper, Elyoukey and JimJimany were all doing their bit for inter-European relations here. Miss Sweden had done a fine job of cooking and finding us liquid refreshment; top hosting work!

The Danes had their first surprise ready; every captain received a pack of special star player cards. The majority of coaches at the event were represented on the cards, we all had funny skills and descriptions. Here’s my card (I think it is actually very flattering, I’m nowhere near that fast!);

The genius of this was that no captain got a full deck of cards, so we as teams had to mingle with all of the other nationalities in order to swap and get a full set. This was a great idea that really added to the socialising before the event.

We also got a really funny pamphlet of suggested strategies we should use on the weekend (including the infamous ‘Perfect Foul’) and a special mermaid miniature to commemorate the event being held in Copenhagen. The draw was conducted, and England would face Germany first thing in the morning since we were both seeded in the top 6 nations. All common sense put to one side, we had some more drinks and practiced our perfect fouls!

The action began first thing (ow, early starts…) on the Saturday morning in the shadow of a subsidised bar (excellent work from the Danes here). Team England (Geggster – Orcs, Lycos – Chaos Dwarves, JimJimany – Wood Elves, Podfrey – Dwarves, Hangus – Amazons, Don_Vito – Skaven, Joemanji – Undead and I – Lizards) first took on Germany and fought a to a tough 4-4 tie.

I drew with the German Undead coach, Lauth, in a tightly fought 1-1 contest. Elsewhere, the seeding system meant that Denmark, Spain, France and Italy all faced off in some titanic first round fixtures.

Our next two fixtures were against Sweden and Finland (both first time nations at the event, so it was really great to play new coaches). I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of wins, and more importantly, team England won both fixtures too, putting us in a really good position come game four, table one on the last game of the day!

You’ll notice all of the lovely custom pitches; the Danes had really gone to town producing special Eurobowl boards. We were told on day one that the winner of each of the seventh and final games would get to claim the pitch as their own, but more on this later…

Denmark had made a terrific start to the weekend through games 1-3 (along with traditional powerhouses Italy, Germany and France), and they awaited England on table one, three wins in the bank. I was lucky enough to play the Danish Woodie coach Fischerking. It was a hilarious game, full of Skulls, 1s, and madness!
It finished a tie after one of those games that you have to have a lie down afterward. Fischerking was the leading individual coach at this point of the competition, here is a shot of him wearing the cape the Danes had provided for the frontrunner (the leading CAS and TD coaches also got the honour of wearing a cape);

Denmark were to prove to be England’s Eurobowl loss for the second consecutive tournament after a solid team victory. We all thought that the lead they had overnight (4-5 points) would be tough to break down over a three game Sunday, but after a fine dinner and a few swift drinks all together at the chalet party, that seemed to matter much less!

I don’t remember much of that Saturday evening, but I do know there is photographic evidence of wine box action, and also Italian coach Corwin, who after 3-4 drinks English coaches JimJimany and Don_Vito were convinced looked very much like Dave Grohl. Let’s be honest though, we all know Dave isn’t Rock n’ Roll enough to play Blood Bowl, we should have known better! Corwin went on to win the EurOpen.

Day two, and England began the day against Italy. I was lucky enough to have a Lizardman off against maestro Yena. It finished 0-0, but it was much more interesting than it sounds! England in general bounced back spectacularly; 6/2/0 against the mighty Italians!

Next up was Belgium. We all took some caffeine (Sports Cola!) on board, and set about our task. I was lucky enough to play Driesfield and dice went my way. England in general got a very sneaky win, and it set us up for the seventh and final round. We were 3.5 points behind the Danes in first (they had continued to play great Blood Bowl and pick up points) and 2 behind France, so the odds on retaining the Eurobowl looked slim. Attention turned to who would walk off with the pitches. In an all or nothing move; our captain Paul and his opposite number from Spain decided that the winning country would take the spoils, regardless of individual results.

Dani112233 was my opponent, and his Undead killed a lot of Lizards! I somehow escaped with a tie, and eagerly looked for the rest of our results.

Also during the Spain game, someone from behind me shouted ‘The NAF are idiots!’ when I was taking a photo. If looks could kill… ;)

England 4-4 Spain! The pitches would be decided via dice off. We allowed JimJimany to do the honours for us, as we knew that he would uphold English values of modestly, sportsmanship, fair play and being a gentleman.

Oh well.

On table 1, the Danes finally lost, as the French put in a classy performance. It was enough to overhaul the 1.5 point deficit, and the French were to receive the glorious new EuroBowl trophy as La Marseillaise rang out into the night air.

Congratulations to France, the European Champions of 2013!

On the Monday morning, we drifted away to the four corners of Europe, already looking forward to when we could do it all again. Thanks to the Danes for being truly magnificent hosts, all of my opponents and everyone that attended for a really great celebration of Blood Bowl! And also to Don_Vito, who I have stolen photos from for this article.

This year, the Eurobowl will be in Vienna, Austria. The hosts of the next Eurobowl are decided by whomever finishes furthest up the table that is yet to have the honour of hosting the event. The Austrian performance in 2012 was spearheaded by Rayd who won the individual prize with a superb 6/1/0 result with his Lizardmen.

The best thing about the Eurobowl is the opportunity to meet and share fun with great coaches from all over the continent, whilst also playing some excellent Blood Bowl! I recommend the event to anyone, and really hope to see lots of you in Vienna this year (see TFF and the NAF site for details) either as part of a national team or in the EurOpen singles event. Come have a great holiday, you won’t regret it!