Birmingham Business Games 2017
by Patrick Garratt - 25th August 2017
Purple Frog sponsored the 2017 Birmingham Business Games, held at the University of Birmingham’s new £55 million sports centre. Did we win? Read on to find out!
The Business Games are in their third year and are organised by Sport Birmingham and LoveBrum, two local Birmingham charities.
Every year, Purple Frog puts in a team and as this year’s event took place at the university, with a team from City university competing, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to get more involved and sponsor the event.
The Frog Squad! Front row: Chris, Bina, Claire, Sam, Maisie
Back row: Ben, Greg, Patrick, Akash, Shaun
This year’s event saw 20 teams taking part in the challenge, which included dodgeball, mini tennis, sitting volleyball and discospin, which is a lovely name for what turned out to be a gruelling challenge.
the rules were simple, each team would compete in the different sports, the one that won the most points would be crowned victors.
after a warm up led by BFSt Fitness, it was time to begin.
It’s the #brumbizgames warm up led by @BFASTFITNESS – If you are at our event check out the amazing raffle prizes they have donated! pic.twitter.com/pu0muXynPx
— Sport Birmingham (@SportBirmingham) July 5, 2017
Dodgeball
This maybe every American PE teacher’s favourite way to fill a lesson and the best work Vince Vaugn’s ever achieved, but it doesn’t mean play is soft or friendly.
play was as hectic and aggressive as you’d imagine twelve adults throwing balls t each other would be. at the end of our two games, we emerged winners out of the four teams in our rotation. a good win, but one that involved some bumped heads and a damaged finger.
The action was a blur. Patrick delivering a speed ball
Mini tennis
Just to be clear, we’re not making excuses about this, but who actually understands the rules of tennis? See, no one. Although after the event one of the officials did say we did better than most, this wasn’t the squad’s best game. In fact, other challenges lter in the games showed us that maybe we weren’t on top form when it comes to hitting balls not dodging them.
We came away from tennis with a less successful result that the dodgeball. It was mainly because we didn’t understand the rules. And we kept hitting the net.
Shaun pretends to be Andy Murray
Sitting volleyball
The rules of this game are summed up by its name. It’s volleyball, but sitting. While this may sound like the sort of game where a team can relax and scale back the effort, think for a second about how much running around volleyball players usually do. Who would have thought that sitting would make something more difficult?
For some reason, the official in charge had given us a ball that had some sort of magnetic attraction to the net. Playing this was good fun and while we tried hard, there’s something about ball games that mean we went two for two losses playing this.
Sitting volleyball is devilishly difficult
Maybe, as we moved out of the main gymnastics hall and into the other games, we’d find something that would bring our skills to the fore.
Discospin
It seems that the ingredients that the Frog Squad need to achieve brilliance is a darkened room, flashing lights, thumping disco tunes and comedy hats. The aim here was for the team to cover the greatest distance possible, taking turns to peddle an exercise bike and row a rowing machine (while wearing ‘disco’ hats). All the while hits from the 80s blasted out.
Ben summed up the cycling as ‘the longest two minutes of my life’, but away from any net-and-ball based activities, the team racked up the points and managed to make disco hats look surprisingly stylish at the same time.
The frog squad are very good at Discospin
Where the team really shone was in the post-spin dance off. Throughout the frenetic spin session the instructor had been teaching the teams a funky dance. The team that mastered the dance the most successfully would get another 3 km added to their score. Sam, Claire, Bina and Maisie took charge of getting the moves sorted.
Under their care, the Frogs dabbed and shimmied their way to an easy extra 3km.
Yes, we CAN take you to funky town
Retro games
Blind ball, Flip the mat and the floor is lava were by far our favourite games. After all of the sweating, it was time to use our brains as well as our muscles.
The rules of Blind Ball are simple. One player is blindfolded. the rest of the team must use their communication skills to guide the player to collect as many blue balls as possible.
Flip the mat saw the tam competing against gym equipment. How many team members can you get on a large gym mat and then flip it over?
If you have half your team give the other half piggybacks, the answer is a lot.
Mat flippin’ with the Frog Squad
Purple Frog ended the evening’s games with the children’s classic ‘the floor is lava’. who didn’t love this game as a child? who doesn’t love it as an adult! Move the all the members of the team, only standing in the two hoops. Great team work and great fun!
The floor is lava!
But did we win?
Erm, no. But sponsoring the event and wlking hom with a trophy doesn’t seem fair.
And the winners of the 2017 #brumbizgames are debutants @MyBCU. They truly dominated the games and even won the basketball charity challenge pic.twitter.com/pvgzLEaIlS
— Sport Birmingham (@SportBirmingham) July 5, 2017
Massive well done to the Birmingham City University team, who romped home to victory!
Also, massive well done to the organisers and volunteers from Sport Birmingham and LoveBrum. Sure, all the teams put in a lot of effort, but it was the people in the white T-shirts who worked hardest. Then, right at the end, put on a spread of pizza and beer for the hungry and thirsty competitors.
Thanks for letting us sponsor such a fun event and we’re really looking forward to next year’s games and another chance at the trophy.
See all of our photos and videos from the event on our Instagram feed. See stories from the other competitors and find out more about the work that Sport Birmingham does on their twitter feed.
If you’re a tenant, remember follow us on social media and you could win a random act of pizza. Thinking of last night’s pizza reminded me.