Put these in your diary and make sure you’re available.

Friday 11 September: Start of season social and farewell to Eliza
7.30 O’Neills followed by kareoke in The Model Inn

Saturday 19 September: Black tie gala evening at the Grape and Olive. Have you joined the Facebook event? If not, let me know. I need final numbers by this Saturday. Tickets are £25 for a three-course dinner, live music and presentation.

Also 19 September is the WKA taster session so think about who you can bring to try korfball. It’s a Talybont 12.30-2.

Saturday 3 October: social to be decided but keep the afternoon and the evening free. More info to follow! Might involve booze and bikes!

Friday 6 November: this event will involve food and fun. More details to follow!

Friday 11 December: Cardiff Dragons night of festive fun

Twenty teams competed in Cardiff’s annual korfball tournament at Cardiff Rugby Club last weekend (Saturday 22 August).

South London-based team, Wildcats, won the tournament, beating off teams from all over the UK including seven Cardiff teams, Gloucester, Highbury, Bec, Manchester and Bristol.

Kate Saunders took part in the tournament and organised the event. She said: “This year we had more than 100 people playing korfball outdoors and it was a really succesdful event. The standard was high and we some great support from the side-lines.

“We’ll be hosting the event again next year and want to encourage as many people to come along and find out more about korfball and we’re developing the sport as much as we can.

“The best thing about korfball is that you don’t need to know the rules to start with – you can just join in and learn as you go. It’s a good way to keep fit and meet new people.”

Cardiff Dragons and Cardiff City organised the tournament which is now in its fourth year.

Korfball is a Dutch sport that is growing in Wales. It is played by men and women on mixed teams and combines elements of basketball and netball.

For more information about korfball, contact Sian Hunt on sian_hunt@yahoo.co.uk

And representing the Welsh Dragons in the Hungarian International Korfball Tournament – Chrissy, Eliza and Julie!!

It was another very sunny day for the tournament, and an excellent social at Taffy’s Bar.

Final placings and photos below:

1. Wildcats
2. Bearsted 1
3. Can’t Touch This
4. Pure Magic
5. Highbury 1
6. Bec 1
7. Scotland
8. Big Cats
9. Bec 2
10. Cardiff Invaders
11. Cardiff Uni
12. Manchester
13. Castle
14. Highbury 2
15. Exeter
16. Bristol City
17. Reading
18. Dragons
19. Bearsted 2
20. Grass Snakes
21. Gloucester
22. Scratch

April saw our club awards night and the league awards, in which several Dragons players gained recognition. Only 1 Dragons player managed to make it into the team of the year, compared to 4 for Bristol City which shows how well we played as a team to beat them. Twice.

Full winners and more photos below.

Club Awards:
Female MVP: Sian
Male MVP: Chris
2nds Female MVP: Amy
2nds Male MVP: Magnus
Most Improved Female: Caroline
Most Improved Male: Gareth
Club Lightweight: Josh
Pin-ups: Angharad and Lee

League Awards

Female MVP: Kristina van Eker (Bristol City)
Male MVP: Dave Hill (Taunton)
Female Top Scorer: Claire Chambers (Horfield)
Male Top Scorer: Ramzi Barbir (Cardiff City)
Most Improved Female: Charlotte Goodrich (Bristol University)
Most Improved Male: Joey Niblett
2nd Division Female MVP: Amy Shillabeer/Hazel Thornton (Exeter City)
2nd Division Male MVP: Roman Christopher (Bristol University)
2nd Division Female Top Scorer: Hazel Thornton (Exeter City)
2nd Division Male Top Scorer: Josh Cockburn
Best Referee: Ian Dellbridge (Bristol City)
Good Sportsmanship Award: Exeter City
Services to the EKL: Josh Cockburn

Team of the year
Kristina van Eker, Hannah Marshall, Claire Chambers, Rachael Edwards
Remco Broekhuis, Dave Hill, Ian Dellbridge, Stu Hall

Victory over Bristol City meant that although other teams have games in hand, Dragons cannot be overhauled at the top of Division 1. Bristol City can finish level on points by winning their remaining games, but would lose out on head-to-head record – just as they did last year.

With the seconds clinching their title on Monday, it’s been a great week for the club. Big congratulations to all the players who made it all happen.

After two successive defeats, a game against a Horfield side missing several key players looked promising for getting back to winning ways, but the performance was better than could have been expected, with the shooting that had misfired so badly against Exeter being particularly good.

The key to the margin was that Dragons had almost total control of the post so could regularly put up multiple shots until one dropped. By contrast Horfield were largely restricted to one shot attacks which meant they failed to develop a rhythm and despite several near misses only one shot dropped in. Remco led the scoring with his shooting being the most accurate it’s been all season. Chris produced countless interceptions to go alongside his 6 goals and Angharad did superbly to bring her second division scoring record into the first team.

All credit to Horfield however, rather than settling for possession-based damage limitation, they kept trying to score and although they were never in contention the final score does do them some injustice.

Thanks to Jack for reffing, and to Natalie for risking RSI by doing the scoring.

Obnoxious gloating: The margin of victory was an EKL record. It’s tempting to say it was a cricket score, bud sadly it’s difficult to imagine England managing to score 31 for the loss of only one wicket. It also was too much for our scoreboard, which only goes up to 30.

Ten Highest Scores in EKL History (Horfield readers look away now)

Cardiff Dragons 31-1 Horfield (06-07)
Horfield 4-24 Cardiff City (03-04)
Bristol University 22-1 Horfield (03-04)
Horfield 8-22 Cardiff City (05-06)
Cardiff City 21-2 Exeter City (04-05)
Exeter City 21-6 Horfield (05-06)
Bristol City 21-8 Taunton (06-07)
Horfield 11-20 Bristol City (05-06)
Cardiff Dragons 19-10 Cardiff City (05-06)
Bristol University 19-9 Cardiff City (02-03)

A fine performance from Dragons seconds, who managed to regain some of the fluency they’d shown earlier in the season.

Dragons began by creating lots of chances which just wouldn’t drop, particularly through Caroline and Gwen, but it was Horfield who took the lead with a quick shot from collect. Gwen finally managed to get a reward for regularly beating her marker, as she scored the equaliser, but as Dragons celebrated Horfield executed a very quick changeover to move back in the lead. Sian responded instantly from long range. This prompted the Dragons to take control, Caroline and Gareth both scored runners before Sian completed a hat-trick. Gareth then finished off another running-in shot neatly from under the basket to give Dragons a 7-2 lead at the half.

It took a while for Dragons to find their feet in the second half, but a quick move from Magnus saw him find the basket from close in. Unfortunately soon afterwards he got an (inadvertent) finger in his eye and had to be replaced by Josh, though there was no long term damage. Back on court, Rachel who had replaced Sian burst through for a running-in shot, then Steve opened his account with a penalty.

Dragons were now scoring with some rapidity, Josh benefitted from assists from Caroline and a neat side feed from Gareth added a rapid brace of running-in shots, then Rachel scored twice at the other end. Horfield did manage a response, but Gareth grabbed his first ever hat-trick (in only his 5th game)�before Rachel finished the scoring from long range.

• The first was a preview of the Wales team, featuring three Dragons, entering the Commonwealth Korfball Championships.
• The second is an overview of korfball for the South East Wales site