Practices are currently at our floodlit winter venue – Hove RFC – from 7pm to 9pm. Please note that these practices are currently not suitable for beginners, but other ultimate players are welcome to attend.

Winter practices cost £5 each for non-members, or £3 for members. Membership is £10, or £2.50 for students, under-18s, and women.

Here’s Brighton 1 captain Sion’s write-up of the awards given out at the dinner:

Women’s Player of the Year – went to Bobbi. Aside from the fact she’s a very talented player with great grabs, spatial awareness, and steely determination (her German side I think), she was also commended for firing up a relatively new team with her competitiveness, passion and banter. A well deserved bottle of Cava is on ice for you somewhere in Brighton, (ditto those who didn’t collect).

Open Player of the Year – went to Sion, awarded by Mental for his input into running the first team. His style of managing the team is based on being formless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Mixed Player of the Year – went to Robbie. Robbie was nominated for a number of awards – he’s had a big impact this year on the club, whether representing Brighton at Mixed or Open. Its early days for Robbie, but already he’s marking out some of the best players both here and in Europe.

Most Improved Male – went to Toppers, (Chris Frame). During the entire season he played both within his ability and at the same time inspirationally; getting some vital D’s at critical moments. Playing within your ability on the first team, whilst also being able to dig deep and bring the intensity needed to make a difference is a hard balance to strike…great job Toppers.

Most Improved Female – went to Alice Wylie. Although Alice is a new player, she’s certainly wily. She showed great commitment to the team and tour this year, and her game has improved hugely, whether on disc or cutting and taking down discs up-field.

Most Spirited Player – went to Megan. The secret to her success is based on politeness, honesty and respect, (taken from nominators feedback), underpinned by a encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, (Robbie, Megan, Callum and YT sometimes play this really fun game. What you do is get a hard copy of the rules and then each person has to think of a pertinent example that applies to that particular rule; if you can’t think of one, your out. Megan’s always last man standing).
This true anecdote does demonstrate something fundemental. You may have good knowledge of the rules, but its fair-mindedness and respect that set Megan apart…someting to think about and aspire to next season. Great job Megan.

Other Mentions – Last, but not least its really important to mention all the people behind the scenes who are committed to Brighton Ultimate. Evil has done a great job this year as treasurer and was especially thanked by all; Alize for organising the event; Tom White for sorting Regionals, Megan for always stepping in and helping in numerous ways; Callum for sorting out the Forum; Rolls and Ala for many good suggestions and ideas throughout the year and Rapo, (with others), for organising SICKO. I’m sure there are many others – apologies if there are any glaring omissions.

In the last 12 months, Brighton Ultimate have won both the UK National Mixed Division Championships and the European Mixed Division Championships, and are consequently the highest-seeded European team in the WUCC Mixed division – seeded 7th out of 40 teams. Over the course of 7 days, Brighton will play around ten 90-minute games. Updates on Brighton’s results throughout the tournament (and hopefully some comments from players) will be posted here on the website and on our Twitter feed. You can also keep up to date with other WUCC news and results on Twitter by following the #wucc2010 tag.

You can hear captain James Houghton talking about Ultimate and the upcoming World Championships on BBC Radio Sussex, and see a couple of short local BBC news clips on our Media page.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Ultimate or want to give it a try, we always welcome new players to our practice sessions (even if you can barely throw a frisbee!). Check out our New Player page to find more info on how Ultimate works and how you can get involved!

Currently we run a weekly practice session in Preston Park, starting at 6pm (or whenever you can get there) until sunset, and usually followed by a leisurely pint at the pub. Anyone is welcome to attend, and if you’ve never played before we’re happy to show you the ropes and get you involved.

Click here for more details on what Ultimate is, how it works, and why it’s so awesome.

If you have any questions about Ultimate itself or getting involved with Brighton Ultimate, email contact at brightonultimate dot co dot uk

If you’ve never been before, it’s a 16 team mixed tournament hosted on 14th/15th August in beautiful Sussex countryside surroundings on the edge of the South Downs in the middle of the summer, to wind down after an exciting Ultimate season. The cost is a value-tastic £145 for UK teams and £100/€110 for European teams. Click here for more info and to confirm your space!

Meanwhile, Brighton Open had a lot of really close matches, only winning 2 of their 7 games. Despite a low finish of 37th place, they gave their opponents a really tough time and showed that they deserved to be competing at XEUCF.

Check back in a day or two for some photos from the tournament.

You can follow our progress by checking the Brighton Ultimate Twitter feed, which will be updated live throughout the tournament. The final placings will be posted here next week along with a link to some photos from the tournament.

New to Ultimate? Check out our New Player page to get an idea of how the game works and how to play.