9men

After a long time, the results page is now 95% up-to date (it’s just missing some friendly results from late last year and the ESH cup result). We have begun our new League season in Wireplay, losing to ScS then beating Box?3 in our second week. Our ETF2L season starts next week, with promotion once again on our targets.

Finally, we welcome long time friend of the clan and regular merc (and previous temporary member!) TroubleGirl to the clan. Welcome!

Sunday marked our last official match of 2009 — and with that, the decade. It also brought the latest season to a close with its share of triumph and disappointment. Thankfully, not too much of the latter.

The season started in Wireplay 6v6 where we enjoyed a pretty successful run in Division 5c — no matches lost and only one drawn meant we were able to take top spot and will enjoy Division 4 competition next season. It was an enjoyable season for us — probably helped by our good performances, but we are under no illusions about next season — it’s going to be much tougher and will require a lot of hard work to perfect what we’re aiming towards.

ETF2L started not long after Wireplay 6v6 and was met with a lot of enthusiasm of optimism amongst the team with many predicting us to win promotion to Division 4 this season. SnowiE has written an excellent summary of how things went down, so rather than rehash his efforts, I suggest you head on over to that page before reading on.

Done? Good.

During ETF2L we had a mini member crisis — we lost kirkeh as our main medic and needed to field mercs or stand-ins for some of our games. Thanks to all the clans that allowed us to use a merc in our games against them. We did manage to recruit a scout / sniper to replace Shambler – who had gone inactive before the season had begun — in the form of Krian, who had settled in very nicely. Regardless, we finished the season in 5th place which, considering the Division o’ Death we were placed in, isn’t too shabby. We promise to have a proper go at it next season!

Wireplay 7v7 started towards the end of ETF2L and was, for many, the first taste of Premiership TF2. This was, without a doubt, our chance to show off our strongest side with our walking tank Ditchy and ubersneak Sh3ll as spy. The season went pretty well when all was considered — five out of the eight teams are Division 4 and above in ETF2L and we definitely held our own in a very-competitive league. In fact, the only match I can think of that we essentially rolled-over in was against logix when we were completely out-classed on pl_goldrush and koth_viaduct.

We enjoyed some very close games against GoT, box and 31 to finish the season in joint-4th place — which does not do us justice at all considering how close a lot of our matches finished. A few seconds shaved off a couple of maps and we’d have finished 3rd, which is definitely something to be proud of considering this was — for most of us — our first flurry of activity in the Premier League. Once again, thanks to the clans that allowed us to field a merc when required.

Unfortunately, now that the season has finished, we have to say goodbye to darkness who is busy cramming as much information as possible in preparation for his exams. We wish him the best of luck and look forward to him returning as soon as they are over. On a happier note, we welcome back two faces — 9men-stalwart gryzor and our medic kirkeh. Our thanks to everyone who applied to trial for us over the last couple of months.

And…that’s it. Our season wrapped up in less than 600 words. We’re now on “official” break from TF2 until January 4th when we will start preparations for the new season with our new squad. So, thanks to the entire clan for what has been a blast in 2009. Have a fantastic Christmas, y’all… and a Happy New Year.

Wow… it’s been over a month since we’ve posted here. Thankfully, SnowiE has granted access to the site and I can wreck havoc whenever I pretty much feel like it. I’m hoping part of that arrangement is regular updates on the state of the clan and such shit.

…is swearing allowed on the 9men website? I didn’t check the rules. Ah, to hell with it.

League Update
Wireplay 6v6 Season 4 has officially finished and we have been crowned Division 5c Champions! This means automatic promotion to Division 4 next season and a chance to compete on a higher stage. We’ve played a few games in the Wireplay 7v7 league and are somewhat comfortable in mid-table at present, having narrowly lost out in our most recent game to GoT — another veteran team of the 7v7 league.

ETF2L is coming to a close and we have one more game left to play (thanks to two teams dropping from our division) against GoT4. A double-win here will secure us 5th place after we drew our game against MRX earlier this week. We would have liked to have done better this season but a mid-table finish could be far worse in what turned out to be one of the harder Div5 divisions.

We have suspended all ETF2L ladder activity until we can re-establish a stable squad. Which leads nicely onto…

Member Update
We have said goodbye to kirkeh unfortunately which leaves us without a dedicated medic. We are currently recruiting for a new one and anyone interested should contact either SnowiE or myself in IRC or on Steam. You can find us on ETF2L for our contact information. We have, however, managed to bag us a diamond — Krian becomes the newest member of 9men and will slot straight into a scout and sniper role.

I’d love to say that I’ve updated the results page with our latest matches but the truth is I haven’t. Really, go check. It’s as out-of-date as Zack Morris‘ mobile phone. I’ll endevour to get that shit sorted over the next week or so. I’ll no doubt be back soon with an end-of-season-type-review kind-of-thing. It’ll be awesome — that is for sure.

Better than SnowiE’s posts at least. *SAFETY WINK*

Next week sees the return of the WPTF2L7v7 league. After winning promotion back to the premiership last season (losing only 1 map), we hope to put in a really good performance this season.

In the last few days we have played our first 2 ETF2L Ladder matches. Tonight we will play our third, against X-Squad. We also have another ladder game against BW on Thursday. The ladder is something we hope to take advantage of, using it for friendlies as much as possible.

The results page is up to date with all recent friendly and official results.

On Monday 19th, we played our first round game in the ETF2L King of the Hill tournament. Not having played the gametype much we were unsure what to expect, but over one hour later we were victorious, winning 4-3 (first to 4 rounds wins). We are currently waiting to see who we’ll face in the next round.

Our ETF2L 6v6 game against zD was extremely tough, with us losing both maps. We wish zD good luck for the rest of the season. Tonight, we play Stamina on cp_freight and cp_fastlane.

We have signed up to the ETF2L Ladder which is currently being tested out. We hope to play our first game against X-Squad soon.

The Wireplay7v7 season is almost upon us, it starts next week. Hopefully we can continue our good performance from last season, although the competition in the top division will be fierce.

Finally, we say goodbye to Ozzy, who has left us to find a new clan and Shambler has gone inactive.

Last night we played our first ETF2L game of the season. It was actually our week 2 fixture, against Team Effort. We won 2-1 on fastlane after an epic first round lasting 14 minutes, then lost badlands 3-2 with us being maybe a matter of moments from drawing when the timelimit hit. Thanks for the excellent games Team Effort, congratulations on everyone for an extremely exciting game!

This week we play our Week 1 ETF2L fixture, against ze Dummkopfs on badlands and gravelpit. The match is scheduled for 8pm on Thursday on our server, source TV is 9men.org.uk:27040

Last night we played our week 3 WPTF2L6v6 fixture, beating Keso 1-0 on cp_yukon_final and 5-0 on cp_well. It was a very fun game, yukon in particular was extremely tense, well played everyone!

This week we are playing Phoenix Squad on cp_gravelpit and cp_badlands. The map is scheduled for Thursday 1st October at 8pm GMT. Source TV is available on 9men.org.uk:27040

In ETF2L season 6, we have been placed in Division 5B alongside the following teams – ReWind, Team Effort, Who Dares Wins, MRX team, ze Dummkopfs, Riders On the Storm, Gathering Of Tweakers team 4, Hampshire Heavies 3rd team and Knifeback Mountaineers. Our week 1 game against ze Dummkopfs is currently on hold until a date can be arranged.

Finally, as per usual the results page has been updated with all the latest friendly and league results.

This week in WPTF2L we play It’s Just on Sunday at 8pm GMT, on cp_freight and cp_granary. It promises to be a close game, Source TV is available at 9men.org.uk:27040

The results page is up to date with our latest friendly results.

We have signed up to ETF2L Season 6 and are hoping to be placed in Division 5. In WPTF2L6v6 we played our first league game of the season, beating FLB 5-1 on cp_badlands and 5-2 on cp_fastlane. Next week we will play It’s Just, who were previously known as dXp. The maps played will be cp_granary and cp_freight.

This week also saw the arrival of Satako’s brother Kirkeh, who will be playing medic for us. Finally, all recent friendly results have been entered on the results page.

We have been placed in Division 5C for season 4 of WPTF2L6v6, alongside vo!tage, It’s just …, Necrotic United Brothers, Keso Gaming, Phoenix Squad, Blazing Gamers and Team Xplosion. The fixtures will be going up tomorrow, with our first game to be scheduled for the following week.