14 June 2009

The 35th Bubble Chamber Tournament

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, I was woken up at 7am by some of the loudest thunder I had ever heard, and looked outside to see torrential rain banging on the balcony. My first thought was "well that's the end of this year's Bubble Chamber Football Tournament...." Later on I was to learn that many of the tournament participants were greeting by the storm as they were driving down the motorway on the way to London.

As it turned out, by the time we all gathered at the Imperial College sports grounds in Teddington, the sun was out, the sky was blue, the pitches were dry, and 9 out of the 10 teams had arrived, ready to battle it out for the coveted trophy.

I applaud all the teams from making it down from afar in spite of the weather. Sadly, one team was not able to muster up the courage to travel to lovely south west London. Anyway, enough about those losers....




The Imperial College HEP Teams

Imperial fielded two teams, the first, the Golden Generation of first-year PhD students and others led by Simon and Ajit, and the second, led by Jordan our group leader with Julian, a 23-year veteran of Bubble Chamber tournaments, in goal, and me wandering about not doing much on the left.


Here is some match action, with Ajit doing something highly technical with his right foot:



and Manchester 1 defending against Liverpool (well, a ringer from Queen Mary, rather):


Imperial 1 and Manchester 1 made it to the semi-finals, but lost to Birmingham and Liverpool (+QM) respectively, who fought it out in the final:




So here are this year's results:

Winners: Birmingham
Runners-up: Liverpool (+ Queen Mary)

Troll: Oxford 2
Biggest Losers: UCL for being put off by a spot of rain


The triumphant Birmingham team:


and the trophy presentation at the pub down by the Thames:



We think Birmingham agreed to host next year's competition -- so see you all there for the 36th Bubble Chamber tournament!!

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