Post by Team Subzero & Carlisle Reball on Apr 27, 2011 14:48:16 GMT
Chapter one - words by Jonny
In 2003 three avid paintball players decided the next logical step was to form a team. We'd played several times together and although I wasn't close friends with Jamie and Dan at the time we were all acquainted. I'd played since 1996, running sessions for my friends, trips to various sites around the country and taking in all there was to know about equipment, the tournament scene and professional circuit. Subzero paintball team was founded because we shared the same passion and it was this very same passion which has literally fabricated my life today. We all have moments in our lives that change the course of everything as we know it and this was a biggie!
Jamie, Dan, myself and Jamie’s best mate Scott decided in Dan's parent’s livingroom on a cold January evening, a team to compete at tournament level was something we had to do. We formed a plan of action and set about brainstorming a team name, a means of training, the purchase of playing equipment and looked for inspiration online during the days without youtube. One video was easily available and downloaded. A trailer for something called 'Push'. We watched with jaws to the floor. This was what we wanted to do. The song playing over the ridiculously fast (well, at least it was then) action was a song by an American alternative garage rock band by the name of ‘AFI’ and the almighty track was ‘Fall Children’. As the chorus was hollowed with a burst of passion the image before us was of equal enormity, a young Chris Lasoya throwing his marker down in a fit of rage during the final match of the world cup. Although ridiculously over zealous, it surmised everything we felt for the game and triggered something inside. Fitting, as AFI stands for ‘A Fire Inside’.
After a couple of meetings we were in full swing working out ways to play regularly. Jamie came up trumps finding a supplier for kit, I worked on the team name, Dan graciously hosted all of our sessions and between us as individuals we became a unit. I think it was the third meeting in I approached the lads with the name Subzero after losing all hope of finding something until reverting back to my favourite character from the video game Mortal Kombat. It seemed fitting as we were eventually to represent the icy north. The guys liked it and everything was in place to begin playing.
We trained at Jamie’s grandparent’s home farm weekly. We used a rented CO2 tank and mechanical Spyder markers with gravity feed loaders. We ordered in a box of the cheapest paint we could and made it last us 2 weeks at a time. All the while we played behind corrugated aluminium sheeting, rusty oil drums, palettes covered in holy tarp (and I’m not talking blessed by God although on reflection anyone hiding behind them sure wished they had been) and we wore the most horrible jerseys on the planet. This was the start of it all and we were having the times of our lives. We played all day Saturday and then I’d leave it until the very last second to dart like the clappers home to do a shift at work still smelling of cow turd. Luckily I was a projectionist so I could sit in solitary confinement smelling like processed grass and cow feed. We shot music videos of ourselves playing, documented games we played and in addition to training to mimic the likes of Avalanche and Ironmen we done what was the most important thing we could, we had fun. Scott for some reason I cannot quite remember began to disappear from the balling scene and we were down to the three of us. At this point we were mates for life. Every evening we’d hang out watching paintball videos, playing Halo or laughing at the blue opera singer from Fifth Element (okay maybe that was the night before a tournament some time later but still needed to be mentioned). We were taken under the wing of the Kamakazees when they were at their peak. Paul Clapperton showed me how to play the back line, Stuart Palmer showed Jamie how to play mid and Alex the tree surgeon showed Dan how to play front while Jasper done a cracking job of annoying everyone. Paul and Kiki’s son Nathan played with the Kams and his best mate Nugget was shooting freelance at the time so we snapped him up and claimed him as our own. Subzero was now four plus guests (remember these were the days of 7-man). At the same time several other teams were beginning their journey, Team Rewind and Deadline. The Northern Heroes had played since the dawn of time (no really, it’s still speculated that a bad curry the veteran members of the Heroes ate with God triggered the big bang, ‘cause and effect’ baby) so they were well established along side the Kams and offered yet more experience to watch and learn from. This was a community in the making. A group of ballers triggering a golden age of paintball in Cumbria.
