We hit the road very early wednesday morning to get to Heathrow for 11am, after a couple of near-death experiences while following my teammate Joe Williams, we began our tradition of spending a decent amount of time waiting around in the aiport (see my last blog post). Although travelling takes longer than it should, it's always a lot of fun, here are some of the quotes that helped make the long day bearable...
"Gotta keep my trainers safe, been playing basketball in them longer than you've been alive!"
"Hey we must have a game this weekend, Matt Wild's here!"
"Who's here? Chopper, Casper, Phil, Shmeicel, Chesney, JaVale, and Tyrone isn't coming"
"Can't be security when they're letting the mentally unstable through..."
"Hey driver, how long till we're there? No keep your eyes on the road!"
"The only way you're coming to my house-warming party is if it's a garden party and I need an extra gnome!"
"He doesn't need 3G with those ears."
"Reckon you'd fit in with that Turkish team, they'd sign you if we told them you were some kind of lucky dwarf."
That's a pretty wide spectrum, but it gives you an idea of what conversation goes through when you meet your teammates at 6:45 and finish travelling with them at 9pm. Luckily for us, the fun was only just starting.
We got to the complex in Thueringen to find out that the team actually own the complex and that all the players contracted to play there live there full-time, meaning the place was packed out with TV, bowling alleys, pool tables, darts boards, private bar and other things to help people pass the non-basketball time.
We ate and headed to our room, where myself, Joe, Joe and Harry were in a 4-bed room with very little space or air conditioning, right across the corridor from the basketball court.
We were meant to have two training sessions today but for a couple of reasons outside our control we ended up with just an hour or so to shoot around. This left the afternoon free for a bit of team bonding where we had a game of bowling, highlighted (or lowlighted, depending on how you wanna look at it) by Casper's epic score of 34 points in 10 rounds. After that it was early nights all round, ready for Game 1 vs the host team the next morning.
Friday got off to a slap-in-the-face of a start, where we got absolutely run off the court by an incredibly strong Thueringen squad, ending in a cold-blooded 83-22 loss for Steelers to start the tournament. Although the loss was tough to take, it helped me personally to see the huge step up and what makes the difference between an amateur and professional team. Lot of respect for Thueringen, who eventually won the group and qualify for a prestigious André Vergauwen Cup that they could win.
Friday night saw us bounce back against an SC Devedo squad that fought tough right to the end. Steelers won 59-41, finding some of the shooting tough that had gone MIA earlier in the day. It wasn't our best team performance of the year, but it gave us a much-needed confidence boost heading into the following day, which would determine who qualified for which final rounds.
We were up for the early-morning tip against French team Le Cannet on Saturday, we struggled to score all game and ended with just 33 points in the 40 minutes, compared to their 67. Not many Steelers highlights in this one, but our team spirit showed at one point late in the game. I got into a bit of a confrontation with Le Cannet #8 Christophe Carlier, as he moved towards me, my 4 teammates on court at the time moved in to stop him getting near me, aided by Joe Caudwell's shout of "Don't worry Mark, he'll surrender before you do!" from the bench.
He got given a technical foul for arguing or swearing at the ref, and then banged my chair to show how I'd fouled him, but he calmed down before being ejected.
For me, that 30-second incident was a moral victory that helped numb us to the loss, which sent us into a make-or-break showdown with KKTC Turkcell later that day for a spot in the Challenge Cup, held in Badajoz, Spain.
We'd watched Turkcell during the tournament, with a feeling they were the team that we'd have to prove we were better than to qualify for anything, and they were like a number of Turkish teams; intense, scrappy, loud and generally obnoxious. They were exactly like that against us, but we showed how much we wanted to qualify and matched their intensity for a good 35 minutes of the game. We struggled to score to close the game out and went several minutes without a basket, erasing our earlier lead and giving us a heartbreaking loss to take home with us.
That was the end of the 2013 Eurocup adventure for Steelers, leaving me with a very surreal feeling about having to wait a whole year for another chance. I found out at the closing ceremony that I had been voted into the Allstar 5 for Euroleague 2 Group C, my first ever Allstar 5 in any tournament! Boost of confidence for me, but doesn't even begin to compare to qualifying for another round of basketball.
Saturday night meant that it was time for the team to enjoy their last night abroad together after a tough tournament, with some mixed results:
Shaken bottle of champagne being opened and the cork hitting Stevie in the face.
Richard saying the word 'town' about 300 times in two minutes.. think he was trying to hint at some place he wanted to go.
Finnish Thueringen player Teemu trying to understand the different accent on the team (west Yorkshire was the winner by a mile)
Stevie telling me and Harry that he loved us like we were his own sons, and that we'd had him close to tears a couple of times this week.
Loud banging on the door and shouting at 3:30am, then going outside soon after to find our door had been blocked by a bench, two plant pots and a bin.
Up at 4:30am to get the bus back to the airport, when I wasn't sleeping on the minibus driver's shoulder (see below) we kept ourselves amused by nicking Stevie and Kev's prized posession, their travel kettle. This led to further fights, arguments and pranks through the airport and on the plane. We all said our goodbyes at Heathrow after what had been a very emotional few days, and me and Harry arrived home at around 5pm, 13 hours after leaving the hotel in Germany.
It was an amazing week with some of my favourite people in the world, and the bitter-sweet ending of not qualifying is going to motivate us all for the next year until we get our shot at redemption.
March 2014 is circled on my calender. We'll be back, Europe.
