As Skyd gears up for our trip to Amsterdam to cover the Windmill Windup, we’re pleased to be able to release interviews with a selection of teams in each division.
Team Name: Rebel Ultimate
Location: Cork, Ireland
Year Founded: late 2009
Website: http://www.rebelultimate.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/
Previous Windmill Appearances: 2
Highest Windmill Finish: 8th (open division)
This newly-founded team from the real capital of Ireland has had an absolutely scary amount of success for a club with less than three years of experience – they’re known as the strongest mixed and open team in Ireland, and can easily be considered some of the most savage drinkers at Windmill. They’ll bring their success as the two-time mixed champion of Ireland to this first year in Windmill’s mixed division, where they’ll hope to win both the tournament, beer race, table quiz and the party.
Can you give us a summary/history of your team?
Rebel Ultimate (RU) was established in Cork (Ireland’s second largest city) in late 2009 by graduates and students of the local university: University College Cork (UCC). As a true club, RU trains and competes in as all divisions available i.e. Open, Ladies and Mixed and we are also proud to have numerous junior players within our ranks. Despite having a relatively short history, RU has enjoyed a lot of success. We are the current All Ireland Open Champions and have won gold at the last two All Ireland Mixed Championships. In addition, we’ve won the country’s two biggest club tournaments; Cork Open and the Siege of Limerick, as well finishing high in several continental tournaments. RU aims to compete more internationally and most recently achieved 3rd place (of 48) in the UK Mixed Tour 1 competition. The name of the club is derived from the colloquial expression “the Rebel County” that Cork is often referred to as.
Are you just made up of players from Ireland, or do you have international players as well?
While the ethos of the club has always been to develop ultimate in the Cork region, the cosmopolitan flair of Cork City has ensured that we enjoy the pleasures of training with and playing alongside people from all over the world. The mixed team heading to Windmill includes lads from Canada and the Netherlands and ladies from Zimbabwe and America (via Russia). The majority of the squad however is made up of locals from Cork and the surrounding area in southwest Ireland.
Rebel Ultimate at Mixed All-Ireland Clubs 2011
What player is most likely to make a huge play as a thrower? As a receiver? On D?
One player that comes to mind under all three of those categories is the mixed team captain Brian O’Callaghan #9. Brian was voted Irish Player of the Year in 2010 and despite his inability to look dump, manages to be one of the most influential players on the field. Nick Peters #19 and Rosie O’Mahony #90 are two players that spend most of their time either airborne or in the mud, disc in hand and will no doubt be big receivers on the team. RU will be grateful for having Caitlin Looney #5, captain of the Irish Junior Ladies team competing at worlds in Dublin this summer, on the squad due to her prowess on D. As for throwers, Donal Murray #84 and James Finn #38 stand out on account of their experience playing with the Irish mixed team that came 6th in last year’s European Ultimate Championship in Slovenia.
Rebel's Fergus McAuliffe skies Owen Binchy of UCD (photo by Aoife Delany)
Can you share a tradition, piece of history, or other trait that makes Rebel Ultimate unique?
The club’s logo is one aspect of the team that receives a lot of attention. The image of a standalone Cork amidst a back drop of the island of Ireland with the accompanying text “Cork, Not Cork” was made by a group of the founding members that wanted to convey a “Cork person’s view of the world”. Despite the cheeky sentiment behind it, the logo symbolises the club’s philosophy that we only concern ourselves with our team and players and we don’t allow ourselves to get distracted by extraneous factors. Since then, however, the image has taken on a life of it’s own and has become popular with expats and locals alike. Some members of the club decided to pounce on this opportunity and, in an effort to raise money for the club, got around to selling custom made T-shirts featuring the logo.
How many years have you attended Windmill? If you’ve been before, what are your favorite memories?
This will be the club’s third year attending Windmill. RU competed in the open division in 2010 and 2011 finishing 18th and 8th respectively. With the enormous growth of the club, it’s now able to enter both the mixed and open division for the 2012 edition of the tournament. There have been a lot of good memories down through the years such as beating the Dutch national team and the ‘craic’ at the parties, but one particular memory that sticks out comes from last year: I don’t think many of us will forget when our captain informed us that we booked ourselves a spot in the quarterfinal against Freespeed following our performance in the Swiss draw.
Rebel's Harry Williams beats Max Vizard of Juice Ultimate (photo by Paul Cronin)
Why did you choose to go to Windmill this year?
Windmill has consistently been one of the largest, most fun and most competitive tournament in Europe. As a big three day festival it’s hard to resist its allure and is seen by most RU members as the highlight of the season. The Swiss draw makes an interesting change to the usual tournament format that we’re accustomed to and for an Irish club, we find that it’s important for us to travel to foreign competitions and play new teams to grow and become more competitive. Being from a small country with a relatively small Ultimate community it can get tiresome playing against the same opposition time and time again.
What are you most looking forward to this year at Windmill?
After the high class competitive games, there are lots of stuff to look forward to. Amsterdam, like Cork, is a great European city to visit and the tournament organisers spare no expense at putting on a good show. The famous mingle mingle party and beer race is great fun and shockingly it historically features Irish participants doing well. This year all the Irish soccer supporters will be looking forward to watching “the boys in green” competing in Euro 2012 in the big tents amidst the good European atmosphere on site. Fingers crossed the organizers bring back the table quiz this year too.
What are your goals for the tournament?
The main goal of the team is to experience as much high level mixed Ultimate as we possibly can and equally as important, have a great time. Windmill Windup is not only a world class run tournament for Ultimate but it is also supported by a brilliant festival atmosphere, which results in every player getting a perfect mix of fun/competitive Ultimate along with competitive/fun partying. Thank you and congrats to Nan and the rest of the WW crew for putting on what will undoubtedly be another amazing tournament.
Rebel's Martin "Juno" Kelly against Trinity College (photo by Aoife Delany)
Comments Policy: At Skyd, we value all legitimate contributions to the discussion of ultimate. However, please ensure your input is respectful. Hateful, slanderous, or disrespectful comments will be deleted. For grammatical, factual, and typographic errors, instead of leaving a comment, please e-mail our editors directly at editors [at] skydmagazine.com.