Dublinfest 2008 - Report Coming Soon!

Our report on the Dublinfest 2008 tournament is coming soon but in the meantime do not hesitate to visit the Dublinfest 2008 Facebook site and add your photos.

Dublinfest 2007 - Fun In The Irish Sun

As the UK rolled over and hit their snooze buttons, 1,000 students were working off their hangovers on board 23 coaches, whisking them across the Irish sea to Dublin. The sun shone and Dublinfest 2007 was underway; next stop: the Emerald Isle.

All the coaches arrived at the port in plenty of time. Once on board, the jungle began to rumble. Everyone tracked down the exclusive Dublinfest areas and drinks started to flow. We made it across the channel in a little under 3 and a half hours.

After a quick turn around at the city centre accommodation, the teams were ready for their first night on tour and their first taste of Dublin's famous Craic.

The multi storey Bad Bobs (now rebranded as The Purty Kitchen) got proceedings off to a flyer with the "Opening Night Party". There's nothing like 4 floors, 3 bars and 3 dance floors to get booze blood pumping. It was still jumping when the lights came on at 02.30.

The sport ran from Tuesday to Thursday. Considering the vast amount of alcohol consumed every evening (and sometimes during the day) every team (and almost every student) made their pick ups in the morning. Admittedly some looked better than others (you know who you are).

Split across 4 of Dublin's top sporting venues all the sporting competitions ran smoothly, not surprisingly with the standard of all the officials.

Lacrosse, once again, was huge with nearly 500 students and 35 teams across the men's, women's & mixed competitions. As always, the tournaments were very closely contested with UWIC going one better than last year and winning the mixed competition. In the women's competition, Manchester University won an incredibly close final, just pipping Bristol University 8-7.

There was a real international flavour to the tournament this year with teams from both Irish & German universities competing. To mark their first year at the tournament, Munich won the men's final, just beating Nottingham 4-3.

This year hockey was a great success with mixed hockey played for the first time. As ever, incredible drinking feats went hand in hand with superb hockey. The inaugural mixed hockey tournament was a great success and Bath again stamped their authority with a 3-0 win over Edinburgh.

In the men's competition, Bath lost the title they won last year, losing to Reading 2-1 in a fantastic match. The standard of hockey was superb from the top hockey universities in the UK, especially given the amount of alcohol and lack of sleep.

The women's final was an international affair with last year's champions Trinity College Dublin being beaten 3-0 by Edinburgh.

Netball was also played at University College Dublin. It was a fiercely contested competition with some great netball. The final went down to the wire with the favourites, Durham University, chased all the way by last year's runners up Aberdeen. Following a very strong final quarter Durham emerged victorious: 24-19. There was also time to get the girls' pulses racing (or the girls running away) when Lincoln Rugby league donned miniscule skirts for a friendly game against a combined universities netball side. Can't get that out of my mind.

DLSP was the venue for Women's Rugby with over 100 players on display from 6 teams. It was very closely fought with Liverpool coming out the winners. It was a very social event and one of the Sweet Chariot staff is sure he can still hear the tour cry of the University of West of England "UWE, UWE, UWE . . . ." ringing in his head. Still. Special mention goes to York St John men's rugby who came with only one thing on their mind . . . It wasn't rugby...

We also had 2 sports making their first appearances at Dublinfest. York's squash team came out to the tournament as the only squash team but did themselves proud both on and off the court with a match against a very strong University College Dublin side and some epic drinking displays.

We were joined by the Lincoln Rugby League team who travelled as the only tourists for their sport but who enjoyed a great match against Munster Students Rugby League. Whilst they readily admit that heavy drinking for 3 days before the match did them no favours, they did give a great showing on the netball court.

So, plenty of energy used up on the sports field meant a cup of Ovaltine and an early night. Er, not. Following each day at the sports venues new levels of Craic were achieved in the clubs. Each year Dublinfest staff are amazed by the tourists' "abilities" to get up after never-ending nights.

Tuesday night's Cross-Dressing Shag-Tag party (quite a mouthful in more ways than one) set the fancy dress standard with short skirts a plenty - a rather alarming sight. Dublin loved it though and the club rocked well into the early hours.

If Tuesday night set the standard, the Superhero party, at the world renowned Zanzibar, raised the bar. Without 3 bottles of Thunderbird, it's not every day you see marauding turtles, hoards of Incredibles and enough Marvel Comic characters to take over the world. It was also great to see the A-Team very much alive. They assured us that "if you've got a problem and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire...The A Team". I'll bear that in mind. Not.

After 3 days of great sport, some of the best (and worst) university sport that Dublinfest has seen, the event culminated in Boomerangs with the prize-giving ceremony and End of Tour Party'. The enormous winners' trophies were a sight to behold. Luke Jones from Cardiff Lacrosse, on his 6th Dublinfest, deserves a special mention. That's commitment.

The next day's early start meant a quiet shandy and an early night.

A 'booze of students' emerged for their transfers on Friday morning, hung-over eyes and battered bodies telling the story of a week's excess. But what a week; it had everything and was made by the students. We can't do this without you so THANKS AGAIN. BRING ON DUBLINFEST 2008! Get in.