From transport to sport, “Matchpoint Melbourne” takes the city’s reputation for major sporting events and applies it to more grassroots activities and less grandiose locations. Thinking lawn bowls for St Kilda hipsters? A little too sedate. Matchpoint takes to the streets, colonising public space and regearing popular activities: laneway cricket, underpass go-kart racing and bicycle polo are the new urban gaming. The organisers believe a celebration of the small can only reinforce tourism, while simultaneously engaging more people.
Thought I’d drop you an email to invite your respective bike polo crews to our “Winter Whack” tournament here in Christchurch – NZ. It’s going to be held on Saturday 14th August – yes we’re fully aware that date is the same as the Worlds in Berlin and will sadly exclude some of you from attending.
That said, we figured there’s a bunch of Aussie players who’d love to play in an international tournament but can’t get to Berlin (for whatever reason)….”Christchurch the Berlin of the Southern Hemisphere”!!
Auckland are sending down a couple of teams to play and we have hooked up with a few sponsors, including Eighthinch with their blinged out golden mallets as first place prize – worth the trip to NZ alone, surely!
It’s 6 weeks away and should still allow some financial recovery time before the Nationals in Brisbane for those who need to factor in travel costs to both. Can you guys let others in your cities know about this. We’ll get the publicity poster out in the next few days and I’ll start to infiltrate your forums and blogs too.
As bike polo players, we have a different take on the urban environment around us, when we see a car park, we think of what it could be, after the cars have gone home to sleep. We are competitors in a sport that is still developing, largely unknown to mainstream society and not planned or accomodated for in a traditional way. Melbourne Bike Polo is being featured in an exhibition and symposium as part fo the current State of Design festival.
Matchpoint.Melbourne!
Melbourne’s major sporting events attract worldwide attention; however, social sports in the inner city are also thriving but go largely unnoticed. Matchpoint.Melbourne is an urban research and design project that suggests how the framework for our everyday sporting activities could be more consciously designed to reveal a dynamic new facet of the city’s well recognised urban culture. In this way, the project aims to connect Melbourne’s branding initiatives to projects of real social substance.
Exhibition Opening: July 1, 2010, 6pm
Exhibition Dates: July 2–18, 2010, open daily 5-8pm, with extended events
July 15 Symposium & Bike Polo Demonstration, 3-7pm, Party, 7pm
Venue: RMIT Building 45, 33 Lygon Street (opposite Trades Hall)
