Cork lies in South Ireland, where the country is green, the people are drunk and the beer does not foam. At least that is the chliché. The truth, of course, is different: There is foaming beer – and even drunk you may experience great debates in Cork!

Twenty teams, most of them from Ireland and Great Britain, prepared for Euros on June 25 and 26 in Cork. Ross McGuire was Chief Adjudicator, just as he will be in Amsterdam for Euros.

Team “Magic Dripping Walls” (Eoghan Casey and Paddy Rooney from Dublin) persuaded adjudicators and audience the most and won the tournament. Berlin’s EPL team (John Eltringham and Cloudluke Ramasenderan) ranked 11th and team “Gutenberg Bad Guys” from Mainz placed as the best ESL team. However, the Bad Guys were also the one and only ESL team and placed dead last. Commented another team: “Well, you chose the Tournament from hell!”

Fortunately, the socials made up for disappointments suffered in debating. The evenings were spent by all participants together in Irish Pubs. Accordingly, the final also took place in an Irish Pub. After everybody imbibed enormous quantities of Guinness and rendered due homage to the winners, who argued against abolishing all state borders as closing Opp, the crows moved to a house party. There, dancing and drinking took place until the early morning, and language barriers were muddied down beyond recognition.

Sunday brought the highlight, as considered by the team from Mainz: Germany facing England at the football world cup! If you have read this article, you surely guessed where the game was observed: An Irish Pub, naturally. Just as naturally, the Irish will cheer for any opponent of the English. After the guys from Mainz declared that anybody caught without a German flag painted on their cheeks shall be deemed to support the Three Lions, support for Germany reached its pinnacle, supported by black-red-gold makeup. The German team did not disappoint its audience, and thus the evening was turned into a parade through all of Cork.

Cork Open 2010 was, all in all, a very  successful and enjoyable tournament that distinguished itself through the excellence in organization, fantastic socials and the truly outstanding quality of the adjudicators. The Germans will come again next year!

Text: Marcus Ewald, DCJG Mainz / glx / fnp