About Club Sandwich

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Club Sandwich was started in 1999 by our president, guru, coach, and general organisational dogsbody Juin who had just migrated down to sunny Kent from Cambridge where he had been playing with Cambridge City Korfball Club. The club was fairly slow to gather people for the first few months, struggling with only 5 or 6 die-hards per practice.
Over the next few months numbers began to increase as the hardy few spread news by word of mouth and dragged along friends, housemates, random work colleagues and netball team mates to have a go.

During 1999 we slowly learnt the basics of the game. We had some major learning experiences, notably while on a trip to Cambridge where we played Cambridge City and lost 14-0, and in entering the Croydon tournament. We managed to scrape enough together for two teams and finished with the dubious honour of coming bottom of both the 2nd and 3rd divisions! (alright, technically we were second to bottom in one of them but the other team didn't turn up!).

We persevered, and entered a team in the 2nd division of the Kent League over the winter of 1999-2000, fully expecting to be the whipping boys. We took ourselves, and some of the other teams by surprise as we won our first 2 matches, some might say more with enthusiasm than skill. We trailed off a little near the end of the season as the other clubs stopped underestimating us and brought a few players down from higher teams, but we still finished a creditable 3rd, being just pipped for 2nd and a promotion place near the end of the season. In the awards at the end of the season we were awarded the Most Sporting team award.

Most Sporting Team 2000

More tournaments followed in 2000, including the coldest, wettest tournament ever in Norwich which was eventually abandoned before hypothermia set in (but only just!). We travelled to Cambridge again, this time pushing City much closer, losing by only one goal and giving us some heart that we had improved over the year. An eventful trip to Brighton followed which was more notable for the evenings festivities than for the korfball played.

A highlight of the year was also the club's first trip to Holland, where we jointly entered 2 teams with Cambridge City into a tournament in the town of Etten Leur. Again, performances were respectable considering we were playing in the home of korfball once we got used to the more physical nature of the game over there.

Etten Leur 2000

2000 also saw our first attempt at organising a tournament, the first Club Sandwich Beach korfball tournament. This was held on Ramsgate beach, a none too ideal venue where we had to contend with a field of seaweed, some hostile natives, and a rapidly rising tide. However, those who attended gave us enough positive feedback to encourage us to try and make it an annual event.

The 2000-2001 Kent League season saw us again in second place in the 2nd Division, this time behind Tigers. Some cracking games against Tigers saw us win, lose and draw with them in the season, but a slip up against bottom side Warriors saw Tigers take the division title

In 2001 we spread our wings further internationally with a trip to the north of Holland in freezing temperatures in March, again in tandem with Cambridge for some friendlies and some coaching. The Norwich tournament in May was a warmer affair this year and we gained our best result in a tournament to date, securing 5th spot.

2001 also saw a top tournament at Gaudechart in France where we fielded 2 teams (and met Tony the Pony), another trip to Etten Leur in Holland with the Cambridge guys, where a joint Sandwich/Cambridge team managed to win the tournament on the Saturday(!), and a hop over the channel for a friendly with Club Grande-Synthe in Dunkirk.

Gaudechart 2001

In August we held our 2nd Beach Korfball tournament. This time it was a bigger event, with around 10 teams taking part on the much more suitable Margate beach. This was another great success, and again Raiders (now Kwiek) won the trophy.

In the winter of 2001-2002 we embarked on our 3rd league campaign in the Kent league, which for 2001-2002 was been combined into a single division. We managed to enter 2 teams for the first time, the first team coming 3rd just one point behind Olympians, and the second team claiming 7th place, equivalent to the second place in the second division which Sandwich have occupied for the last two seasons.

The summer of 2002 was another busy one for Sandwich, with more of an international flavour as Sandwich opted to enter tournaments with a better chance of getting a suntan.

Lisbon Trip 2002	We travelled to an excellent tournament in Lisbon, had an interesting(!) trip to Barcelona, along with visits to the Norwich, Kent and Cambridge tournaments and finishing the summer tournament season with our 3rd Beach Korfball tournament on Margate Main Sands, again won by Raiders, followed a week later with a trip to Rotterdam.
2003 was a year of transition for Sandwich, characterised by a leaving do almost every week, as people left the area with work leaving just a few die hards behind. Throughout the tournament season Sandwich continued to attend as many as possible, but had the dubious distinction of not making it to any tournaments with a full team with Pam getting the job of "Chief Seeker" to go out and drag some unsuspecting folk onto the pitch to play for us. Still, we managed trips to Luxembourg in June and to Rotterdam in August, and held our 4th beach tournament of 16 teams, won for a refreshing change not by Raiders, but the Beached Whales.
The year was also charcaterised by some desperate recruitment activities to try and build numbers and stop us going under. With a couple of weeks to go before the start of the team we were still without enough people to enter a team, but with one successful campaign yielding some girls(!!) we scraped a team in just in time. At the time of writing we are lying second in the second division (for a change) but there are sure signs of potential in a very inexperienced team.

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